On Thursday, the University of Notre Dame was accused of breaking the terms of portion 8 of the National Labor Relations Act by supposedly misclassifying its runners as “student-athletes ” when they are employed. The College Basketball Players Association ( CBPA ), a group of advocates led by Michael Hsu, filed the unfair labor practice ( ULP ) charge in preparation for the upcoming presidential election. Since there is no position need to record an unfair labor training cost, the fact that an lobbying group and certainly Fighting Irish players filed the charge is not disqualifying. Federal law permits the filing of a fee if it alleges that anyone has engaged in or is engaging in any harsh labor process that affects business. Notre Dame is the second institution to be accused of a ULP demand by Hsu, a former Regent of the University of Minnesota. In the wake of National Labor Relations Board general council Jennifer Abruzzo’s September 2021 memo on college athletes ’ employee status, Hsu filed the first ever unfair labor practice charge on behalf of college athletes, which targeted the NCAA. Abruzzo asserts that when the term “student-athlete, ” a hallmark of NCAA amateurism, is used to suppress employee rights, it is promoting illegal conduct. In early 2022, another organization, the National College Players Association, led by players right ’ advocate Ramogi Huma, filed a ULP charge against USC, the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA. He claimed that the NLRB paused his initial cost so that it could concentrate on the USC case. A California administrative law judge is currently deciding whether USC basketball and men’s and women’s basketball players are employees of their respective colleges as well as their conferences and the NCAA in terms of the principle of” joint work.” If the players are employed by their respective conferences and the NCAA, they could be considered combined employers of other athletes, including those who attend public colleges. However, in New Hampshire, Dartmouth men’s sports players—who petitioned the Board on their own to form a union—have been recognized by an Board regional director as workers who may form a coalition, which they did on March 5. The problem is on attractiveness. Hsu, for his part, has filed three more ULP claims against Northwestern, Dartmouth and the Ivy League, none of which has made any noticeable progress. Hsu claimed that because filing a command takes less than 15 days, he has resisted filing more to avoid overburdening the NLRB team. Hsu said he was concerned that Abruzzo’s possible election in November might cause him to lose his job earlier in the following season, so he wanted to start things off right away in South Bend, Indiana. “The clock is ticking because of the political calendar, ” Hsu told Sportico in a phone interview. “ I don’t hear if they’ll get any work done on this in 2024. I am confident that Notre Dame may employ all the top law firms, possibly even better than USC, but my goal is to at least at least have something in operation. ” The ULP cost will fall on the disk of Notre Dame’s fresh sport director, Pete Bevacqua, who took over for the retiring Jack Swarbrick next month. In an interview with Sportico weeks before his departure, Swarbrick declined to specifically address the possibility of Notre Dame players unionizing, but said he believed the NLRB’s ultimate decision to drop authority in the 2015 Northwestern basketball players union charge was the correct one. A request for comment was not responded to by a Notre Dame athletics spokesperson on Thursday afternoon. Unlike USC, Dartmouth or Northwestern—where football players a decade ago unsuccessfully sought NLRA recognition as employees—Notre Dame’s football program competes as an independent school in the Football Bowl Subdivision. ( Other ND programs, such as basketball, play in the Atlantic Coast Conference. ) The football team’s independence could carry sizable legal significance. The five board members of the organization made the point that Northwestern is a private college that competes in a conference ( the Big Ten ), where the other schools are public and are therefore subject to varying state labor laws when the NLRB declined to exercise jurisdiction in the case. Because some of the schools might not be considered employees under their respective state laws, but Northwestern football players would still be employees and potentially union members, the NLRB considered that arrangement to be disruptive. The ACC is not named in the complaint, nor are any particular Fighting Irish athletes cited as having been harmed by the National Labor Relations Act. Rather, the charge says only that “Notre Dame” athletes have within the last six months been misclassified by the university as “student-athletes. ” If the Fighting Irish football players are employees, there is no conference consideration. One of the reasons for the unionization effort was at an Ivy League institution like Dartmouth, which participates in a conference where the eight members are private colleges. Does the university have the right to regulate the work that the athletes do for Notre Dame in exchange for compensation, and does the university have the right to determine that work? As employees, players who receive athletic scholarships, spend a lot of time on football, have high TV and attendance revenues, have improved alumni relations, and have high admissions rates, and have a football schedule that the school views as more important than their class schedule, could be considered employees. Players may be able to gain preferential admissions to a selective college ( Notre Dame is consistently regarded as an academically prestigious school ) and other benefits, such as free clothing and meals, to increase employee recognition. So could the coaching staff’s substantial control of athlete schedules. It’s unclear, however, if Notre Dame players would testify in favor of employee recognition. We do n’t know what the players think, which is one of the distinguishing qualities of the charge filed by an advocacy group rather than the players. Additionally, the NLRB process might take several months or even longer to complete. A regional director will typically mandate an investigation that includes interviews with witnesses ( such as coaches and players ), as well as an examination of emails, memos, and other documents.