Hamilton, it's time for you to glance over and note HELU, Higher Education Labor United, which is pulling together local unions and organizations in higher ed -- not just faculty but also clerical, staff, healthcare workers, everybody -- and will be scooping up college athletes as they unionize. HELU is at higheredlaborunited.org for the vision statement endorsed by 145 plus local unions; founding convention coming up May 17-18-19
Even if only a few schools unionize, the impact would reverberate throughout all other colleges. This would be a major shift, giving college athletes more bargaining power. These spillover effects from unionization are very well documented. https://www.nominalnews.com/p/unions-strike-action-and-the-economy
If speed is key, who can go talk to the NBA players association and NFLPA tomorrow and lend them some organizing staff but more importantly do a member organizer training. Want college athletes to organize. Have the Pro union offer to let them join 4 years early and back their campaign. A lot (most, all) college athletes have dreams of going pro. Who wouldn’t want to jump at chance to join the pro athletes union and make connections while in college.
And damn right about the spokespeople potential. Having Alabama players speak at Mercedes would be great. But how about Steph Curry or Lebron James doing a video to college atheletes encouraging them to sign their union card tomorrow
i quit going to college football and basketball years ago (South Park "student athlete" episode!) until the athletes got paid. The good news with the union effort is that I have the ability to be involved, vs being a single consumer boycotter, and the union will help further the progress in the getting paid department. thanks for the article
Speaking as a former college athlete, I too would love to see more unionized college teams. However, in reading this piece something did stick out to me. You seem to use the phrase "college sports" to mean "football and men's basketball" -- i.e., the revenue sports. Unfortunately, the majority of collegiate sports don't bring in money. Oftentimes, universities will even look for excuses to cut non-profitable men's programs, like track or gymnastics, so they can free up more scholarships for football. I think it's important to acknowledge that college athletes aren't a monolith and some sports may be assuming more risk by attempting to unionize than others. Which perhaps makes it more important for the revenue sports to unionize first, or for them to spearhead a larger, school-wide student athlete unionization effort.
Love this take. And as an urbanist, I can’t help but think that the college campus’ traditional density and walkability lend themselves to unionization (or any social activity).
Why would college players necessarily be in solidarity with the rest of the college? If they think of themselves as high value and the grad students and adjuncts as low value--and the money involved bears that out--how is this going to work? Is there some sort of trickle down effect here?
They'll be up against a river of crap, that's for sure. There's a lot of "old boy networks" tucked away in college sports, not just in the universities themselves but in the NCAA and the various "bowl committees" that ain't gonna want their sweet little sinecures trimmed.
Draw targets on them now, so when they start their subverting they can get a nice harsh spotlight.
Hamilton, it's time for you to glance over and note HELU, Higher Education Labor United, which is pulling together local unions and organizations in higher ed -- not just faculty but also clerical, staff, healthcare workers, everybody -- and will be scooping up college athletes as they unionize. HELU is at higheredlaborunited.org for the vision statement endorsed by 145 plus local unions; founding convention coming up May 17-18-19
speaking as a former college athlete, nothing would bring me more joy than seeing sports teams unionize
Even if only a few schools unionize, the impact would reverberate throughout all other colleges. This would be a major shift, giving college athletes more bargaining power. These spillover effects from unionization are very well documented. https://www.nominalnews.com/p/unions-strike-action-and-the-economy
If speed is key, who can go talk to the NBA players association and NFLPA tomorrow and lend them some organizing staff but more importantly do a member organizer training. Want college athletes to organize. Have the Pro union offer to let them join 4 years early and back their campaign. A lot (most, all) college athletes have dreams of going pro. Who wouldn’t want to jump at chance to join the pro athletes union and make connections while in college.
And damn right about the spokespeople potential. Having Alabama players speak at Mercedes would be great. But how about Steph Curry or Lebron James doing a video to college atheletes encouraging them to sign their union card tomorrow
i quit going to college football and basketball years ago (South Park "student athlete" episode!) until the athletes got paid. The good news with the union effort is that I have the ability to be involved, vs being a single consumer boycotter, and the union will help further the progress in the getting paid department. thanks for the article
As a former campus food-service worker (and union member!), I heartily applaud this message.
Speaking as a former college athlete, I too would love to see more unionized college teams. However, in reading this piece something did stick out to me. You seem to use the phrase "college sports" to mean "football and men's basketball" -- i.e., the revenue sports. Unfortunately, the majority of collegiate sports don't bring in money. Oftentimes, universities will even look for excuses to cut non-profitable men's programs, like track or gymnastics, so they can free up more scholarships for football. I think it's important to acknowledge that college athletes aren't a monolith and some sports may be assuming more risk by attempting to unionize than others. Which perhaps makes it more important for the revenue sports to unionize first, or for them to spearhead a larger, school-wide student athlete unionization effort.
Love this take. And as an urbanist, I can’t help but think that the college campus’ traditional density and walkability lend themselves to unionization (or any social activity).
Why would college players necessarily be in solidarity with the rest of the college? If they think of themselves as high value and the grad students and adjuncts as low value--and the money involved bears that out--how is this going to work? Is there some sort of trickle down effect here?
They'll be up against a river of crap, that's for sure. There's a lot of "old boy networks" tucked away in college sports, not just in the universities themselves but in the NCAA and the various "bowl committees" that ain't gonna want their sweet little sinecures trimmed.
Draw targets on them now, so when they start their subverting they can get a nice harsh spotlight.