Senator Lamar Alexander released the following statement Monday on the National Labor Relations Board’s decision to dismiss a regional ruling which would have allowed college athletes to unionize:
“The National Labor Relations Board has made the right decision for student athletes in this case, but it has done student athletes and all students no favor by leaving the question open for the future. I do not believe that Congress, when it wrote the National Labor Relations Act, intended that students – whether they be athletes or graduate assistants - be considered employees of their university.
The Vanderbilt University quarterback on scholarship, the Gonzaga University woman’s basketball player or the biologist earning a PhD, should be free to focus on earning college degrees, not fending off union organizers looking to increase union dues collections.”