In big, big news in the fight to curb the NCAA's exploitation of unpaid athletes, the National Labor Relations Board's Chicago district ruled that Northwestern University football players meet the definition of employees
and can unionize:
NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr cited the players' time commitment to their sport and that their scholarships were tied directly to their performance as reasons for granting them union rights.
Ohr wrote in his ruling that Wildcats players "fall squarely within the [National Labor Relations] Act's broad definition of 'employee' when one considers the common law definition of 'employee.'"
Northwestern will appeal the ruling, and with the players on the team turning over substantially from year to year, by the time of a final decision on whether they get a union vote, many of the leaders of this effort to unionize will have graduated. But this is an important step in the fight.
The full ruling is here.