Dartmouth basketball team votes to join the first college athletics union

Members of the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team Tuesday became the first college athletes to vote to join a union, a significant milestone in the rapidly changing business for collegiate sports.

Members of the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team Tuesday became the first college athletes to vote to join a union, a significant milestone in the rapidly changing business for collegiate sports. The team members voted 13-2 in favor of the union, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union representation votes for private employers. The affirmative vote does not automatically mean that there will be a union for members of the the team. Dartmouth has already indicated it will appeal the decision by the NLRB to recognize the players as employees who are eligible to join a union. “We have productive relationships with so many unions. We believe our athletes are students,” Dartmouth President Sian Beilock told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an interview last month. “We don’t give athletic scholarships. We are student-athletes here, and we believe our students should be thought of in that way.” But a regional director of the NLRB ruled that the players are employees because Dartmouth “has the right to control the work performed by the Dartmouth men’s basketball team, and the players perform that work in exchange for compensation.” That compensation includes “room and board for part of the year, equipment, apparel, tickets to both home and road games, footwear, access to nutrition and medical professionals, exclusive use of certain facilities, and academic support,” according to the NLRB regional director’s findings.