House Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., said the National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, made the right decision Monday by rejecting a union bid by Northwestern University students.
“I am pleased cooler heads prevailed in this case and hope this is the final word on this misguided idea,” Kline said in a statement following the board’s announcement, adding that the decision “puts the interests of students above those of Big Labor.”
An NLRB regional director ruled in March 2014 that the Northwestern University athletes were employees of the school, not students, and therefore had the right to form a union. On Monday, the five-member board unanimously reversed that decision, stating that it did not have jurisdiction in the case since most National Collegiate Athletic Association teams were from publicly-funded institutions. The National Labor Relations Act restricts the board to private sector labor matters.
The committee under Kline filed an amicus brief in the case that argued that allowing the athletes to unionize would have hurt them in the long run since it would have resulted in many colleges and universities eliminating athletic scholarships entirely.
Kline reiterated the point in his statement Monday. “Another outcome would have made it harder for students to access a quality education, created confusion for academic institutions across the country, and ended college athletics as we know it,” he said.
He also said the country “would be well served” if the board members used the same “bipartisan, common sense approach” in other high-profile cases before it. Republicans have accused the board, which has a 3-2 Democratic majority, of being too pro-union.
