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Dartmouth basketball players vote to form first union in college sports
Dartmouth College basketball players voted on Tuesday to unionize, a historic step toward forming the first union in college sports that could have broad ramifications for other amateur athletes.
Members of the Ivy League school’s men’s basketball team voted 13-2 in favor of joining Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some Dartmouth workers. Unionizing allows the players to negotiate a salary, along with working conditions like practice hours and travel.
A college athletes’ union is unprecedented in American sports.
“Today is a big day for our team,” players Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil said in a statement. “We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. Dartmouth seems to be stuck in the past. It’s time for the age of amateurism to end.”
Haskins and other players began their attempts to unionize last year, but the college objected to their move, forcing federal regulators to step in and make a ruling. The NLRB held hearing with players and Dartmouth in early October then deliberated until last month.
Hours after the vote, Dartmouth administrators filed a formal appeal to the unionizing effort, according to a statement issued Tuesday by the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB will review Dartmouth’s reason for the appeal and issue a decision later, a spokeswoman for the agency said Tuesday.
Dartmouth, in Hanover, New Hampshire, said Tuesday it objects to the union drive, arguing that basketball players at the school aren’t employees of the college.
“For Ivy League students who are varsity athletes, academics are of primary importance, and athletic pursuit is part of the educational experience,” the college said in a statement. “Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate. We, therefore, do not believe unionization is appropriate.”
Why Dartmouth’s union vote is important
The NCAA has long maintained that players at member schools are “student-athletes” who don’t need to be paid because their scholarship serves as fair compensation. But players are pushing back on that notion as college sports has become a billion-dollar industry.
Some collegiate athletes are pushing back by monetizing their name, image and likeness under NCAA guidelines approved in 2021. Other players, like at Dartmouth and the University of Southern California, are choosing the unionization route.
Football and basketball players at USC have an ongoing case with the NLRB about whether those student-athletes can legally be considered employees of the university. Being considered employees would clear the path for those players to also unionize.
The NCAA said in a statement Tuesday that it’s “pursuing significant reforms” to give college players more benefits, but players “should not be forced into an employment model.”
The Dartmouth vote comes roughly a month after the NLRB decided that the basketball players are technically employees of the college. That decision may serve as the kindling other college basketball players need to unionize their teams.
“We will continue to talk to other athletes at Dartmouth and throughout the Ivy League about forming unions and working together to advocate for athletes’ rights and well-being,” Haskins and Myrthil said.
Haskins, a 6-foot-6 forward from Minneapolis, is already a member of the SEIU local as a school employee, working 10-15 hours a week on a 10 p.m.-2 a.m. shift in the dining halls to earn spending money. Myrthil, a 6-foot-2 guard from Solna, Sweden, also has a part-time job checking people into the gym.
Support from pro athletes
The Dartmouth vote drew support Tuesday from a prominent labor group that represents professional athletes. Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark applauded the players “for their courage and leadership in the movement to establish and advance the rights of college athletes.”
“By voting to unionize, these athletes have an unprecedented seat at the table and a powerful voice with which to negotiate for rights and benefits that have been ignored for far too long,” he added.
Myrthil and Haskins have said they would like to form an Ivy League Players Association that would include athletes from other sports on campus and other schools in the conference.
—With reporting from the Associated Press.
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A Russian court on Monday convicted a theater director and a playwright of terrorism charges and sentenced them to six years each in prison, the latest in an unrelenting crackdown on dissent across the country that has reached new heights since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
Zhenya Berkovich, a prominent independent theater director, and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk have already been in jail for over a year awaiting trial.
Authorities claimed their play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” justifies terrorism, which is a criminal offense in Russia punishable by up to seven years in prison. Berkovich and Petriychuk have both repeatedly rejected the accusations against them.
In one hearing, Berkovich told the court that she staged the play in order to prevent terrorism, and Petriychuk echoed her sentiment, saying that she wrote it in order to prevent events like those depicted in the play.
The women’s lawyers pointed out at court hearings before the trial that the play was supported by the Russian Culture Ministry and won the Golden Mask award, Russia’s most prestigious national theater award. In 2019, the play was read to inmates of a women’s prison in Siberia, and Russia’s state penitentiary service praised it on its website, Petriychuk’s lawyer said.
Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
The case against Berkovich and Petriychuk elicited outrage in Russia. An open letter in support of the two artists, started by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was signed by more than 16,000 people since their arrest.
The play, the letter argued, “carries an absolutely clear anti-terrorist sentiment.”
Dozens of Russian actors, directors and journalists also signed affidavits urging the court to release the two from custody pending investigation and trial.
Immediately after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin unleashed a sweeping campaign of repression, unparalleled since the Soviet era. It has effectively criminalized any criticism of the war, with the authorities targeting not only prominent opposition figures who eventually received draconian prison terms, but anyone who spoke out against it, publicly or otherwise.
Pressure mounted on critical artists in Russia, too. Actors and directors were fired from state-run theaters, and musicians were blacklisted from performing in the country. Some were slapped with the label “foreign agent,” which carries additional government scrutiny and strong negative connotations. Many have left Russia.
Berkovich, who is raising two adopted daughters, refused to leave Russia and continued working with her independent theater production in Moscow, called Soso’s Daughters. Shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, she staged an anti-war picket and was jailed for 11 days.
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