College Athletes Unionizing for Basic Health and Safety Protections, Witnesses Tell Committee

Press Release

College athletes lack many basic health and safety protections, which has spurred them to band together to seek union representation and generate policy changes, members learned at a Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing today.

The hearing explored the issues faced by today's college athletes, who are key figures in the multi-million-dollar collegiate sports business and find that the 40 to 50 hours a week that they must dedicate to numerous sports-related practices and team meetings forces them to put their academic needs on the backburner.

Many college athletes must place their health and financial security at risk in order to participate in their sport. For example, the NCAA requires that players pay for their own health insurance, which can leave athletes with substantial out-of-pocket costs after on-field injuries. In addition, many players are at risk of losing their scholarships--and thus their chance for an education and a career--if they sustain an injury.

"An athlete who has bargained, individually or collectively, to ensure he is well fed, given real access to the full range of majors and programs at a school, and provided with health and safety rules that lower the risk of serious head trauma or life-long disability is going to be in a better position to benefit from a true education than a hungry or concussed athlete forced into dead-end majors," said committee witness Andy Schwarz, an economist who specializes in antitrust economics and the economics of college sports.

Football players at Northwestern University have been at the forefront of efforts to seek union representation to address some of the issues faced by today's college athletes. They have been organizing, not to seek a paycheck, but to secure policy changes such as guaranteed coverage for sports-related medical expenses for current and former players, policies that minimize the risk of sports-related traumatic brain injury, and support for improving graduation rates.

"Our nation's talented college athletes have become units of production that are over-scheduled and over-worked, left without safeguards for their health and safety, and encouraged to put their education on a backburner in favor of their success on the field," said Rep. George Miller, senior Democrat on the committee. "By banding together and bargaining, these athletes can win the kinds of things union workers have demanded and won across the country, including a say about avoiding serious injury on the job, medical benefits and security if something does go wrong, meaningful input into how they balance their work--in this case football--with their academic needs and other responsibilities, and the respectful treatment and care they so richly deserve."

Source