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  1. #141
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    Quote Originally Posted by TampaDuke View Post
    The requirement to also be a student is precisely what the university argues makes these employees "not employees," regardless of benefits provided or control by the college. It didn't seem to matter to the Regional Director, though.

    An alternative to dropping the requirement that student-athletes actually be students (which will never happen), Congress can just amend the tax code to exempt income from student-athlete/employees. Of course, they'd likely also need to similarly amend the Affordable Care Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, ERISA, Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, GINA, the FLSA, COBRA, etc. Then we'll need all 50 states to amend their workers' compensation laws, restictive covenant laws, and various other employment-related laws.

    In other words, tax implications are but one small side-effect of labeling students as employees. If that's the direction we're headed, there are literally hundreds of other implications that will need to be addressed. That reason alone, together with the fact that for probably a hundred years no one has ever understood that student athletes were actually employees, demonstrates the fallacy of the Regional Director's results-oriented decision. Don't you think the IRS would have sought taxes from one of these "employees" sometime during the last few decades if they thought they were employees?
    Couldn't being a student, an NCAA requirement in order to play football, make the scholarship exempt from taxation, aka, paying tuition for an engineer's going to business school to serve his employer in any number of more business related capacities. That said, academic.

    An NLRB election victory will yield current players nothing. Even assuming a majority of current players voted for unionization, it is questionable that seniors would even have a chance to vote before the season ended. And, all the players would likely be long gone before an election victory would be given effect by a reviewing court.

    The only way players will get to unionized or get the benefits that they seek is there was a groundswell of public support behind them. The public doesn't care and the coach and Northwestern do. Let the games begin; those who are about to be seriously injured salute you. Just the way it goes.

  2. #142
    Quote Originally Posted by TampaDuke View Post
    The requirement to also be a student is precisely what the university argues makes these employees "not employees," regardless of benefits provided or control by the college. It didn't seem to matter to the Regional Director, though.
    Just because an argument is rejected does not necessarily mean it did not matter to the decisionmaker.

    I do not practice labor law, but it appears one of the closest cases on point regarding whether or not students are "employees" under the NLRA is a case involving the issue of whether graduate assistants at Brown University were employees. In his decision, the Regional Director stated one of the key findings in the Brown case was that “students serving as graduate student assistants spend only a limited number of hours performing their duties, and it is beyond dispute that their principal time commitment at Brown is focused on obtaining a degree and, thus, being a student.”

    http://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/ne...rsity-athletes

    I do know State universities are not subject to the NLRA. But assuming the University of Kentucky was subject to the NLRA, would your position be that the freshmen starters for UK this past Monday night were primarily focused upon obtaining a degree and that was the primary commitment of their time?

  3. #143
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    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    Couldn't being a student, an NCAA requirement in order to play football, make the scholarship exempt from taxation, aka, paying tuition for an engineer's going to business school to serve his employer in any number of more business related capacities. That said, academic.
    I'm definitely no expert on tax law, but I believe scholarships used toward tuition, books, board and the like are not taxable and scholarships in excess of what is needed for that is taxed. That's the way it used to be anyway. The problem here is that the NLRB (or RD in this case) is essentially saying that this is payment of a wage when it comes to student athletes. Does that change the equation for tax purposes? I don't know, but it is an issue that would need to be addressed. My view is that it is not payment of a wage, it's a scholarship. The fact that the college gets something in return (in substantial amount) shouldn't change that.


    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    An NLRB election victory will yield current players nothing. Even assuming a majority of current players voted for unionization, it is questionable that seniors would even have a chance to vote before the season ended. And, all the players would likely be long gone before an election victory would be given effect by a reviewing court.
    Completely agree. This issue, if it moves forward, will play out over 8-10 years in all likelihood. The graduate assistant issue has been ongoing for more than that. For unionization of student athletes to work given the temporary nature of college player commitments would require the NLRB to also institute special rules governing these bargaining units. The NLRB does that in other contexts, but nothing too similar to this in my opinion.

    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    The only way players will get to unionized or get the benefits that they seek is there was a groundswell of public support behind them.
    I don't disagree that there should be reform of the NCAA as it relates to student athletes; I just don't think calling them employees so that they can unionize under the traditional union model is a correct view of the current law. The best thing about the Northwestern case is that it has created the groundswell (or started it) and initiated the debate into needed reform of the NCAA.

  4. #144
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    Quote Originally Posted by Atlanta Duke View Post
    I do not practice labor law, but it appears one of the closest cases on point regarding whether or not students are "employees" under the NLRA is a case involving the issue of whether graduate assistants at Brown University were employees. In his decision, the Regional Director stated one of the key findings in the Brown case was that “students serving as graduate student assistants spend only a limited number of hours performing their duties, and it is beyond dispute that their principal time commitment at Brown is focused on obtaining a degree and, thus, being a student.”

    http://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/ne...rsity-athletes
    It's a bit dangerous to view NLRB respect of precedence as similar to how precedent is treated in a judicial forum. The consensus is that the Brown decision will be overturned at the earliest possible opportunity. The NLRB has already solicited views as to whether to overturn it. As such, I'm not sure relying on Brown is best. The short of it is that these decisions are policy-driven. As a practitioner, it's very frustrating, but it's been that way since the formation of the NLRB.

    Quote Originally Posted by Atlanta Duke View Post
    I do know State universities are not subject to the NLRA. But assuming the University of Kentucky was subject to the NLRA, would your position be that the freshmen starters for UK this past Monday night were primarily focused upon obtaining a degree and that was the primary commitment of their time?
    No, my position is that the time spent or focus of the student athlete is not an appropriate criteria at all. Nor is how much money they make for the university, their coach, or themselves (down the line). My position is much simpler -- if you voluntarily signed up to be a student athlete, which have never before been deemed employees -- then you are not an employee and cannot later claim to be simply because the commitment requires a great deal of time or you value the athlete portion of your role more than the student portion.

    Should the Kentucky band members also be deemed employees if they received a scholarship? How about scholarship students who have to commit most of their time (and some of whom are not permitted to work) to maintain criteria required of the scholarship?

    One thing that gets lost in the student athlete/employee analysis is that these players are not taking over a task that is traditionally done by a college employee. I can see a case for a grad student being an employee as they are doing functions that an employee would otherwise have to do. You see the same things sometimes with alleged volunteers who are sometimes deemed employees under various employment laws because they are treated as employees and performing a function that an employee would otherwise perform. This is key. If the college did not have these student athletes performing these functions, you would not have a college employee that would have to do it and in fact that is not allowed.

  5. #145
    Quote Originally Posted by TampaDuke View Post
    It's a bit dangerous to view NLRB respect of precedence as similar to how precedent is treated in a judicial forum. The consensus is that the Brown decision will be overturned at the earliest possible opportunity. The NLRB has already solicited views as to whether to overturn it. As such, I'm not sure relying on Brown is best. The short of it is that these decisions are policy-driven. As a practitioner, it's very frustrating, but it's been that way since the formation of the NLRB.

    No, my position is that the time spent or focus of the student athlete is not an appropriate criteria at all. Nor is how much money they make for the university, their coach, or themselves (down the line). My position is much simpler -- if you voluntarily signed up to be a student athlete, which have never before been deemed employees -- then you are not an employee and cannot later claim to be simply because the commitment requires a great deal of time or you value the athlete portion of your role more than the student portion.
    Thanks for the clarification on Brown. FWIW it appears Northwestern is busting on the Regional Director for not even applying Brown correctly in its brief to the full Board requesting review of the Regional Director's decision.

    http://documents.latimes.com/northwe...are-employees/ (I got hooked on reading source documents by Professor Anne Scott when taking her History 91 and 92 courses)

    Of course the issue of how voluntary it is to sign up to be a student athlete subject to the full bundle of NCAA requirements, including but not limited to waiving your right to compensation for use of your likeness in TV broadcasts, is perhaps the major issue in the O'Bannon antitrust case. The jury trial in that case is set to kickoff in early June, following the District Court's linked order this past Friday that denied the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. That order stated the following:

    Plaintiffs allege that student-athletes are harmed by this restraint because it prevents them from receiving compensation -- specifically, for the use of their names, images, and likenesses -- that they would receive in an unrestrained market. ...

    Plaintiffs’ evidence is therefore sufficient to support an inference that, in the absence of the NCAA’s restrictions on student-athlete pay, a market would exist
    for these group licenses.


    http://www.hausfeldllp.com/content_d...ryJudgment.pdf

    I agree with the posts above that state the union organizing campaigns are a slow motion, piecemeal approach for players seeking a greater say in the terms and conditions of their time spent as players in major revenue sports that the NCAAA institutions can battle indefinitely. Assuming the O'Bannon case does not settle, there will be a jury verdict in that case before the Board rules on Northwestern's appeal. The antitrust exposure appears to be the much greater threat.

    NCAA should have moved to address some of these issues years ago before litigation ramped up - pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered

  6. #146
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    Let's keep policy and politics out of this thread.

    Thanks,

    -jk

  7. #147
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    Let's keep policy and politics out of this thread.

    Thanks,

    -jk
    Not certain if I was the poster to whom that was directed. If so I apologize.

  8. #148
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    Quote Originally Posted by Atlanta Duke View Post
    Not certain if I was the poster to whom that was directed. If so I apologize.
    More a general request. Getting into the politics of unions, and their waxing and waning, would be more public policy board material.

    -jk

  9. #149
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    Asheville, NC
    Forgive me if this has been covered, but how would these students do their taxes? Since they're employees, I assume they would get W-2s. (How) would the cost of the school factor in, either for the parents or the student-athletes? I would imagine this would have some serious consequences to potential student-athletes.

  10. #150
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    Brown has little to do with this case, it did not involve scholarships given to football players who could lose them at will by their employer for failing to fulfill their coach's football obligations, they are part of a multimillion dollar enterprise that has nothing whatever to being a student except that being a student is what the NCAA requires in order to play. It is difficult to imagine that a thing of value given to players to play is not a form of compensation, even though it should not be taxable because it is an employer prerequisite to playing, which they don't get if they get injured or do not play to their employer's satisfaction. Compensation given to players is sufficient to make them employees under the definition of employee established in the NLRA, which the NLRB Board members have broad authority to interpret, while being a non-taxable event. Happens all the time in other contexts.

    The length of time that it would take for an election victory to be legal effect by a court of appeals in the Northwestern or other football program case is no different than the time it takes to give an election victory in most NLRB election cases, minimum-wage LPNs in nursing homes. Like college football players, there is no chance that the LPNs who voted will be around when a court degree is issued, and thus union organizing will have to start afresh.

    Several state courts who have considered the issue of teaching assistants' status have found them to be employees of state universities under state labor relations acts and there have been a number of schools who have voluntarily recognized unions representing such assistants based on a showing of majority status due to public pressure. Brown was out of step. The reasons underlying the Northwestern players effort to unionize have received scant attention from the media especially the health care and job security issues that are huge. It seems to me that those issue come to the fore only if the football players at many big time programs file election petitions with state labor relations boards or the NLRB and command the floor to make known their grievances regarding those these issues. Who knows, something might come of it. Absent that, I see the NCAA doing nothing. the cost of health care both in college and long term will significantly eat into the profits that the players earn, the job security issues give the abusive head coaches who drive kids to injury and then dump them produces "winners," the cheating that is ubiquitous in big time college football and basketball keeps many players out of the bind that Parker found himself in, one and done is going to be changed to two and done to satisfy the financial interests of both leagues, and the NFL has players locked into college for 3 years. The impetus for maintaining the status quo is enormous.

    Those who make it to the dance will get paid for 2 or 3 years on the average, and will leave their years of football near cripples in a short number of years or unable to tell a football from a garbage can in less. Free health insurance, a thing of the past. It has no future in the world of football. The coaches say so, and they run the show.

  11. #151
    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    The reasons underlying the Northwestern players effort to unionize have received scant attention from the media especially the health care and job security issues that are huge. It seems to me that those issue come to the fore only if the football players at many big time programs file election petitions with state labor relations boards or the NLRB and command the floor to make known their grievances regarding those these issues. Who knows, something might come of it. Absent that, I see the NCAA doing nothing. the cost of health care both in college and long term will significantly eat into the profits that the players earn, the job security issues give the abusive head coaches who drive kids to injury and then dump them produces "winners," the cheating that is ubiquitous in big time college football and basketball keeps many players out of the bind that Parker found himself in, one and done is going to be changed to two and done to satisfy the financial interests of both leagues, and the NFL has players locked into college for 3 years. The impetus for maintaining the status quo is enormous.

    Those who make it to the dance will get paid for 2 or 3 years on the average, and will leave their years of football near cripples in a short number of years or unable to tell a football from a garbage can in less. Free health insurance, a thing of the past. It has no future in the world of football. The coaches say so, and they run the show.
    Union organizing efforts are not the only or for that matter best potential leverage the players have.

    The O'Bannon antitrust case that is set for trial in June seeks compensation for use of the players' likenesses in video games and, more significantly TV broadcasts. If that case settles the NCAA presumably could agree to providing post-graduation health care and modifying the current one year renewable scholarship system that took hold in the 1970s as part of the settlement.

    Assuming the NCAA will take its chances at trial in O'Bannon, another antitrust case seeking class action status for football and basketball players was filed against the NCAA and the five power conferences last month.

    [The lawsuit] contends that NCAA member universities are acting as a cartel by fixing the prices paid to athletes, who presumably would receive offers well in excess of tuition, room, board and books if not restricted by NCAA rules.

    Lead plaintiffs' counsel in that case is Jeffrey Kessler. This is not Mr. Kessler's first rodeo for high profile sports law matters.

    Kessler helped bring free agency to the NFL, winning a key jury verdict for the NFL Players Association in 1992. He remains outside counsel to the NFLPA and the NBA's player union, has taken on Major League Baseball and represented star athletes including Michael Jordan and Tom Brady.


    http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...-amateur-model

    Health insurance coverage, guaranteed scholarships, and other terms and conditions of employment could be put in play in that suit as well.

    Link to the complaint filed by Kessler here

    http://a.espncdn.com/pdf/2014/0317/NCAA_lawsuit.pdf

  12. #152
    I think the governing issue about "what happens if scholarships are taxable" is, "is a scholarship legal reimbursement for employment". I may be way wrong here, but I don't think it is.

    Currently, the NCAA treats academic standing as a requirement for employment: every athlete must be a student in good academic standing, and there are collective standards as well. As such, it cannot be considered compensation, because I'm pretty sure employers in the US can't force you to spend your compensation somewhere (specifically to the institution which grants it). So either the athletes would be exempt from being enrolled at the school or the school would have to categorize their scholarships as a non-monetary benefit.

    The takeaway from that, though, is if athletes are classified as employees and their scholarships are a non-monetary benefit of their employment, then the athletes will need to be paid at least minimum wage.

    Or is my interpretation of the situation wrong? If the NLRB's current decision holds, would the student-athletes' "employee" status require they receive minimum wage?

  13. #153
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    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    Couldn't being a student, an NCAA requirement in order to play football, make the scholarship exempt from taxation, aka, paying tuition for an engineer's going to business school to serve his employer in any number of more business related capacities. That said, academic.
    Two thoughts:

    1. To be exempt from taxes, a student who receives a scholarship must be enrolled in a degree-granting program. The scholarship must not be in excess of costs (e.g., tuition). I expect that the tax hypothesis is far from settled if athletes are viewed as "employees" under the Fair Labor Stds. Act.
    2. Nothing prevents the Congress from passing a law exempting athletic scholarship payments IN ANY AMOUNT from taxation. Even though the legislative climate is the worst in history, nearly 40 states have teams in major conferences.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  14. #154
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Nothing prevents the Congress from passing a law exempting athletic scholarship payments IN ANY AMOUNT from taxation. Even though the legislative climate is the worst in history, nearly 40 states have teams in major conferences.
    My bet is on Congress getting involved, just as it addressed antitrust concerns to clear the NFL/AFL merger in the 1960s. Whether that is part of adjusting statutes to cover a settlement or the NCAA seeking a legislative fix to bless its practices is an open question

    B10 commissioner Jim Delaney is on record as saying if the O'Bannon litigation ends badly that Congress will need to address the consequences (presumably with some guidance from Mr. Delaney's friends)

    [If] we’re successful (in court), we’ll continue and maintain and modify practices. And if we’re unsuccessful, the people in Congress will have to figure out what they do with Title IX, and what they do with the anti-trust laws, and we’ll have to figure out where we fit in and where we want to be.

    http://www.indystar.com/article/2013...CAA-issues-day

  15. #155

    Finally a coherent policy

    Am I the only one who sees a link between the NCAA relaxing their stance on pot and allowing unlimited food to players? Next up, cartoon network provided in athletic dorms.

  16. #156
    No surprise this is quite the divisive issue at Northwestern, particularly among former players

    Fault Lines Appear at Northwestern Over Union Vote


    The varied viewpoints were on display at a meeting on Wednesday night organized by former Northwestern football players at a civic center here. Several dozen alumni attended, most of them former football players.


    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/sp...ef=sports&_r=0

    My guess is Chris Collins is keeping his head down and hoping to avoid making any comments on this matter

  17. #157
    Jameis Winston issued citation for shoplifting food from Publix supermarket

    Sheriff’s Office: Winston Issued Citation For Shoplifting $32 Worth Of Crab Legs

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS Tampa/AP) — Florida State’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jameis Winston has been suspended from the university’s baseball team after being issued a citation for stealing crab legs.

    The Leon County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that Winston was caught shoplifting at a Tallahassee Publix Monday night and was issued a citation...

    Winston’s reported citation comes as the NCAA approved to expand meal allowances for all athletes.

    Division I schools are now allowed to provide unlimited meals and snacks to all athletes, including walk-ons.

    The move came after Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier complained during the Final Four that he sometimes went to bed “starving” because he couldn’t afford food.

    Schools were previously allowed to provide three meals per day or a stipend for those meals to scholarship athletes. The new rule now allows walk-ons to receive the same allowances and allows schools to provide more meals and snacks, too.
    What! Now we have Heisman trophy winners forced to steal crab legs in order to make it through the night???

    Surely there must be a Crab Fishermen's Union somewhere to come to the aid of Florida State football players, as the United Steelworkers did at Northwestern!

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