The Dartmouth College men’s basketball team is dropping its historic bid to form a union, months after voting to do so.
The decision, announced Tuesday, comes as Republicans are poised to take control of the National Labor Relations Board, which could affect who is allowed to unionize on college campuses. A regional office of the board cleared the way earlier this year for the players to vote on the petition, ruling that the student-athletes were employees and thus allowed to unionize.
Dartmouth disagreed with that opinion and refused to bargain with the team until the five-member NLRB ruled on the issue. Currently, the five-member panel has two vacancies, so incoming President Donald Trump could quickly reshape the board. In withdrawing the petition, the Service Employees International Union, Local 560, which represents the players, decided not to gamble with the new board and potentially risk a negative opinion.
“By filing a request to withdraw our petition today, we seek to preserve the precedent set by this exceptional group of young people on the men’s varsity basketball team,” local president Chris Peck said in a statement to the Associated Press. “They have pushed the conversation on employment and collective bargaining in college sports forward and made history by being classified as employees, winning their union election 13-2, and becoming the first certified bargaining unit of college athletes in the country.”
The Dartmouth team union threatened to upend college sports and added more urgency to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s efforts to settle the question of whether student athletes are employees who can collectively bargain. The NCAA has lobbied Congress to pass a law affirming that college athletes aren’t employees. The incoming Congress seems likely to grant that request.
