AAUP National
July 2014
The AAUP filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board arguing that graduate assistants at private sector institutions should be considered employees with collective bargaining rights. The board invited amicus briefs in the Northwestern University football players’ case to address several important issues, including whether the board should modify or overrule its 2004 decision in Brown University, 342 NLRB 483 (2004), which found that graduate assistants were not employees and therefore did not have statutory rights to unionize. In its amicus brief, the AAUP argued that the board should overrule the test of employee status applied in Brown to graduate assistants, but did not take a position as to whether the unionization of college football players was appropriate.
This case arose when football players at Northwestern University sought to unionize. The university argued that the football players were not “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and therefore did not have statutory rights to choose whether to be represented by a union. The Regional Director for the Board had to determine whether players were “employees” as defined by the NLRA. The board normally applies the common law definition under which a person who performs services for another under a contract of hire, subject to the other’s control or right of control, and in return for payment, is an employee. The regional director found that under this common law test, the football players were employees under the NLRA.