Are college athletes employees? Case against USC, Pac-12 and NCAA to move forward at NLRB

An advocacy group's effort to establish NCAA athletes as employees under federal labor law has received a notable boost.

A case filed with the National Labor Relations Board by the National College Players Association earlier this year is moving forward after a regional director with the board found merit in the case, a spokesperson for the NLRB confirmed in an email Thursday.

Notably, the regional director's decision centers around a determination that Southern California, the Pac-12 conference and the NCAA are "joint employers" of football and men's and women's basketball players at the school – a ruling that, if upheld, could have significant ripple effects across the world of college sports.

"Coaches, athletic directors and conference commissioners are making millions of dollars while NCAA sports denies athletes fair compensation, breaks minimum wage and overtime laws, and avoids workers compensation while hazardous workplace conditions remain unchecked," Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the NCPA, said in a statement.

"Gaining employee status and the right to organize is an important part in ending NCAA sports’ business practices that illegally exploit college athletes’ labor."

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NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said the regional director's determination signals that USC basketball and football players have been "unlawfully misclassified" as student-athletes rather than "employees entitled to protections under our law."

"This kind of misclassification deprives these players of their statutory right to organize and to join together to improve their working/playing conditions if they wish to do so," Abruzzo said in a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports through a spokesperson. "Our aim is to ensure that these players can fully and freely exercise their rights."

Abruzzo issued a memo in Sept. 2021 indicating that she views college athletes as employees of their schools under the National Labor Relations Act, which gives private employees the right to unionize and collectively bargain. The NCPA filed unfair labor practice charges on behalf of athletes at USC and UCLA four months later.

The NCPA said in a news release that it will withdraw the charge filed against UCLA, which is a public school, at the request of the NLRB's division of advice. The case involving USC will move forward, meanwhile, because it is a private school.

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There are still several hurdles that must be cleared before a final ruling on the case – which, if the NCPA is successful, would effectively establish football and basketball athletes at Division I private schools as employees. The parties could still reach a settlement, and any preliminary ruling by the NLRB could still be appealed.

That said, Thursday's news is a step forward in the process, and it is significant because it terms the school, conference and NCAA as joint employers.

Gabe Feldman, the director of the Tulane Sports Law Program, said this joint employer aspect could be extremely important if maintained through the conclusion of the case. If the Pac-12 and NCAA are found to be employers, it could open the doors for athletes at other Football Bowl Subdivision schools to argue that they are employees, even if they attend public schools.

"It's incremental progress, but this is a significant step in the battle for employment status for college athletes," Feldman said in an interview.

Jordan Bohannon, an NCPA board member who now plays for the Iowa Wolves of the NBA's G League, called it "an important step toward much needed change."

"I am clearly an employee as a G League basketball player, and I’m doing the same thing I was doing just months ago for the University of Iowa," Bohannon said in a statement. "The difference is that I now have employee rights under labor law and protections under a collective bargaining agreement."

The NCPA's case with the NLRB is the latest in a string of unionization efforts among college athletes and their advocates. Another recent effort came in 2014 and 2015, when Northwestern football players attempted to unionize. The NLRB declined to accept jurisdiction in the case, however, saying at the time that it did not have jurisdiction over public schools.

In the wake of Thursday's news, this case figures to unfold differently. And it could prove to be a significant challenge for incoming NCAA president Charlie Baker. Baker, the governor of Massachusetts, was announced earlier Thursday as Mark Emmert's successor. He is due to take over March 1.

Contributing: Steve Berkowitz

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College athletes case against USC, Pac-12, NCAA moving forward at NLRB