NLRB memo says college athletes are employees — not "student athletes"— and deserve benefits, pay
CBSN
College athletes who make millions for their schools moved one step closer to gaining the rights afforded private sector workers when the top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board said in a memo they should be treated as employees of the school.
The memo issued on Wednesday by NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo doesn't immediately change the current dynamic, in which players rake in millions for their schools, conferences and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in exchange for no more than a scholarship and cost of attendance stipend.
But it lays a potential path for athletes to unionize or otherwise bargain over their working conditions, including pay.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.