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Northwestern University football players won't unionize

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The National Labor Relations Board on Monday unanimously dismissed a petition by Northwestern University football players to unionize, effectively halting their ability to receive medical care and other benefits as employees of the university.

The five-member board also declined to determine whether Northwestern football players receiving scholarships are employees under the National Labor Relations Act, according to a NLRB statement released Monday.

The decision overturns a historic March 2014 ruling by an NLRB regional director that Northwestern scholarship football players were indeed employees of the university and could decide whether to unionize.

In the statement, the NLRB said, “asserting jurisdiction over a single team would not promote stability in labor relations across the league.”

The NLRB does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities, and in the Big Ten conference, Evanston, Illinois-based Northwestern is the only private institution, according to the statement.

Only 17 of the roughly 125 NCAA Division I teams are not state-run, according to the NLRB.

In a separate statement, the National Collegiate Athletic Association called the decision “appropriate.”

“This ruling allows us to continue to make progress for the college athlete without risking the instability to college sports that the NLRB recognized might occur under the labor petition,” the NCAA said.

In January 2014, 85 Northwestern grant-in-aid scholarship football players filed a petition seeking the right to form a union. Northwestern University protested, arguing that the players are temporary employees who are not eligible for collective bargaining.

And in March 2014, NLRB Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr in Chicago ruled the scholarship players were employees and could vote to unionize. The ruling directed the players to hold a secret ballot election to determine whether they would be represented under the College Athletes Players Association.

According to an NLRB spokeswoman, those ballots, which were impounded, will not be counted and will be destroyed.

In Monday's decision, the NLRB emphasized in its statement that the “decision is narrowly focused to apply only to the players in this case and does not preclude reconsideration of this issue in the future.”

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