Dartmouth says it won’t work with players’ union

Mar 18, 2024, 05:32 PM ET

HANOVER, N.H.– Dartmouth will not enter into cumulative bargaining with the union its men’s basketball players voted to sign up with earlier this month, the school stated Monday in a relocation that could send out the case to federal court.In a statement

revealing its refusal to bargain a labor handle the athletes, the school was adamant that it believes “athletes in the Ivy League are not staff members.”

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A local director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled last month that Dartmouth basketball players were employees, clearing the way for them to vote to sign up with the union.The players then voted 13-2 to join the Service Personnel International Union Resident 560.”Offered Dartmouth’s decades-long dedication to sports as an extension of our scholastic objective, we believe the local director has actually made an extraordinary error in discovering these students are employees,”the school stated in its statement, which called the players “trainees whose educational program includes sports.”Dartmouth is asking for an evaluation of the local director’s choice by the complete board.”From a procedural viewpoint, if the complete NLRB refuses to reverse the local director’s choice, Dartmouth’s only remaining alternative to challenge this legal error is to engage in a technical refusal to deal, an unprecedented action in our long history of labor settlements, “the school stated.”This will likely result in SEIU Resident 560 submitting an unjust labor practice charge with the NLRB, which we would appeal. This is the only lever Dartmouth needs to get this matter evaluated by a federal court. “