LEILA FADEL, HOST:
They'd hoped to be the first group of college athletes to negotiate a contract with their school. The Dartmouth men's basketball team voted to form a union last year, and a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board agreed that they were employees. Dartmouth College decided not to negotiate and appealed that decision. Now the students are dropping their attempt to unionize. The union that was representing the players, the Service Employees International Union Local 560, is withdrawing their petition before the NLRB. We're joined now by the union chapter's president, Chris Peck. Good morning.
CHRIS PECK: Good morning.
FADEL: So let's start with why the players wanted to unionize.
PECK: Well, I think - we had many conversations before they did. And there are things like schedules, health care, possible stipends. So we had many discussions, so - and just protections overall.
FADEL: And why drop the attempt to unionize? I mean, Dartmouth appealed. Why didn't the students keep going?
PECK: Well, with the change in the NLRB, it created a problem because we had - we're probably going to have judges in there that will not recognize this. And what we would do is probably bottleneck what's going to possibly or probably will happen in the next couple of years. I think we're going to see organizing across the country in some of these big schools.
FADEL: Dartmouth argued at the time that although it has, quote, "deep respect for our 1,500 union colleagues," unquote, on its campus, the NLRB's ruling that the basketball players are employees was, quote, "incorrect and not supported by legal precedent." What's your take on Dartmouth's stance, argument?
PECK: Well, I think there's a couple of things. First of all, they're probably being pressured by other ivies and other schools because if this happened here, they would've been probably not popular because it would start a whole tidal wave. So there's that piece - it costs money. And I would like to add just that they already have undergrads that are union on campus, so that was part of our whole argument during the NLRB case.
FADEL: Now, you said they didn't want to start a tidal wave, but you expect more unionizing efforts going forward?
PECK: Oh, definitely. And I think if we would've continued this process with a conservative board, we would've probably lost and would've gave the other side more of a argument to say, look, this board said they're not employees. And we know that they are because this is really an employee case more than even a sports case.
FADEL: You said it's more of an employee case than a sports case?
PECK: Yes.
FADEL: If you could, expand on that.
PECK: Well, I mean, when I started talking to the guys, it was - you got to make it clear that they're employees, so you look at control. And if you read the NLRB's response to the first hearing, they agreed with us on almost everything. There's control. For instance, yesterday, they had a basketball game on New Year's Day. They were here New Year's night. They didn't have the same fun as the rest of the college students, right? So all the sports teams are under control. They're getting payments in ways of clothing and shoes.
FADEL: Yeah. Chris Peck is the president of the SEIU Local 560, the union chapter that was representing the Dartmouth men's basketball team in their attempt to form a union. Thank you for your time.
PECK: Thank you.
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