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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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 Posted: 04/10/14 4:18 pm ::: |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| Are all college scholarships considered taxable income? If not, then calling them income for athletes might be an issue ... |
IRS Publication 970 "Tax Benefits for Education" addresses the conditions of when scholarships and fellowships are not taxable.
The potential problem, I believe, is that the NLRB regional office decision is largely based on divorcing the financial aid for football players from their education. He basically said they are getting paid to play football and that it has nothing to do with their education.
If that's true, then I have a hard time seeing how that compensation would not be taxable income. |
The IRS doesn't have to pay attention to the NLRB (and vice versa). That's not to say that the IRS wouldn't look at the issue again in the context of an NLRB decision, but it's not mandatory. |
That's certainly true. But the NLRB isn't going to end this, and if a court of appeals or the Supreme Court say that an athletic scholarship is compensation for playing the sport, the IRS would be unlikely to ignore that.
Personally I don't think the courts will agree with the regional director. The tax issue only arises if the union wins in the end.
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Posts: 11050
Location: Lost in D.C.
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| Posted: 04/10/14 5:07 pm ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| beknighted wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| Are all college scholarships considered taxable income? If not, then calling them income for athletes might be an issue ... |
IRS Publication 970 "Tax Benefits for Education" addresses the conditions of when scholarships and fellowships are not taxable.
The potential problem, I believe, is that the NLRB regional office decision is largely based on divorcing the financial aid for football players from their education. He basically said they are getting paid to play football and that it has nothing to do with their education.
If that's true, then I have a hard time seeing how that compensation would not be taxable income. |
The IRS doesn't have to pay attention to the NLRB (and vice versa). That's not to say that the IRS wouldn't look at the issue again in the context of an NLRB decision, but it's not mandatory. |
That's certainly true. But the NLRB isn't going to end this, and if a court of appeals or the Supreme Court say that an athletic scholarship is compensation for playing the sport, the IRS would be unlikely to ignore that.
Personally I don't think the courts will agree with the regional director. The tax issue only arises if the union wins in the end. |
But any court determination would be under the NLRA, not the tax code, and so it wouldn't bind the IRS. Heck, there are even cases in which the same word has been interpreted to mean different things in different contexts by the same federal agency, and the courts have said it was okay. (Not to mention that we're talking about the definitions of two different things - employment and income.)
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 8227
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| Posted: 04/10/14 5:35 pm ::: |
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The type of scholarships now commonly available to athletes are not taxable.
But, as Art said, the NLRB decision says that the financial aid has nothing to do with academics and is just payment for football services rendered. Some of the evidence the NLRB director used was that the coaches, who "boss" the athletes as labor supervisors, are not part of the academic faculty, and the student-athletes receive no academic credit for their supposed 40-60 hours a week devoted to football. This is indeed contrary to my experience at Columbia as an undergraduate long, long ago. All the head coaches were tenured academic professors in the Physical Education department and playing sports earned P.E. credits that the student would otherwise have to earn by attending gym classes.
The IRS wouldn't have to tax athlete-employee compensation, but I've only rarely seen it exercise restraint when monetary payments meet the Supreme Court's constitutional definition of "income".
It's not just the federal IRS. Each state can independently go after the financial aid as income. And out-of-state students would be subject to taxation in two states -- the state where they are "employed" and their home state of "domicile".
I suppose the NCAA could concoct new definitions to avoid the current "professionalism" bar, but they would have to dance along some fine lines, and then possibly be subject to equal protection/discrimination law suits from those athletes who don't get the benefit of the new definition.
The Northwestern decision is an example of Leviathan gone ape.
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Nixtreefan
Joined: 14 Nov 2012
Posts: 2539
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| Posted: 04/10/14 5:56 pm ::: Lucky |
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| purduefanatic wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| I do think, though, that universities that generate income from sports (not profits) have treated the athletes that generate that income unfairly |
In what way?
I have worked/coached at a few different levels of schools, including BCS programs. The athletes at those schools had the best of everything:
- Tons of gear (shoes, clothes, etc)
- Ability to register for classes prior to the rest of the student body
- Access to computer labs, study rooms, mentors, tutors only available to student-athletes
- Chartered travel, both air and bus (and people that have chartered know how amazing that is)
- Games played in many places that people just don't get to go to very often (Hawai'i, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, foreign tour, etc)
- Dorms that were either the newest and/or closest to the facilities
- Training table meals that were better than anything else offered on campus to students
- Personalized and individual training on the court, in the weight room
- Use of all facilities at no charge whatsoever
- Rock star status on campus
And none of that cost them a penny... |
Very lucky to say the least IF they actually had any time other than the time spent doing all that training and travelling etc. In the real world however kids are not in the best facilities on campus, they do not get priority, some are dumped in classes to keep them eligible or not cause problems for the program, they get limited gear which wears out, they don't travel charter and waste a lot of time with delays in airports, training table is the same every single time, on trips they get only 2 meals provided and are given $7 which would pay for Mcdonalds cheap menu, if there was one close to even visit. They also are put through so many drills, practices and conditioning that they wouldn't have time to use those facilities even if they had any time left.
Then break down the number of hours and compare to the cost of the tuition and possibly it would equate to min wage! Oh and then they are supposed to graduate.
But I am sure some will say that doesn't happen, but it does and I wish there was some kind of watchdog that would oversee such situations as Compliance is a joke and works in the interests of the school and the coach.
It is very difficult for a teenager to come forward and put themselves out there to complain and ultimately put themselves in the line of fire.
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mercfan3
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 19760
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| Posted: 04/10/14 10:11 pm ::: Re: UConn basketball's dirty secret |
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| PUmatty wrote: |
| miller40 wrote: |
Since when are Kentucky players staying until graduation? |
If you read the story, it's not about just graduating. It is also about leaving the university (transferring or leaving higher education) in good academic standing. It would suggest that the one-and-done players at Kentucky are actually going to class and succeeding in the year they are there.
On the face of it, I find that hard to believe as well. Regardless, that UConn number is so bad it should be an embarrassment for anyone associated with that university. |
"good academic standing" is..a load of bs. The actual APR rules are pretty ridiculous.
For example, a senior has to graduate. It's not enough that they finish with top grades. So when seniors Jeff Adrien, Craig Austrie, Gavin Edwards (who, btw, spent his entire Uconn career with a GPA higher than 3.0), and Stanley Robinson decided that they were going to make an attempt at a professional basketball career..but hadn't earned enough credits to graduate, it counted against the school.
Whereas, Kentucky's freshman with their three classes can exit and have it not count against the school.
Now, these numbers are still pretty for Uconn bad. But they were really the result of one huge class...most of which transferred for various reasons. (Some of them being because they couldn't behave themselves..) Add in the few seniors that left without graduating..and you get those numbers.
And the "graduation" rate for most schools is far more pathetic than these statistics show. (So basically..Uconn sucks at school, but so do most top basketball schools.  )
And I actually suspect that Shabazz has more than an "athlete's should be paid" bone to pick with the NCAA. Shabazz lost a year in post season play for something that the two senior classes before his freshman season did. (And any other school that would have also been banned for the same reason got an exception.)
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 04/11/14 10:38 am ::: |
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| purduefanatic wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| I do think, though, that universities that generate income from sports (not profits) have treated the athletes that generate that income unfairly |
In what way?
I have worked/coached at a few different levels of schools, including BCS programs. The athletes at those schools had the best of everything:
- Tons of gear (shoes, clothes, etc)
- Ability to register for classes prior to the rest of the student body
- Access to computer labs, study rooms, mentors, tutors only available to student-athletes
- Chartered travel, both air and bus (and people that have chartered know how amazing that is)
- Games played in many places that people just don't get to go to very often (Hawai'i, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, foreign tour, etc)
- Dorms that were either the newest and/or closest to the facilities
- Training table meals that were better than anything else offered on campus to students
- Personalized and individual training on the court, in the weight room
- Use of all facilities at no charge whatsoever
- Rock star status on campus
And none of that cost them a penny... |
All of this is true, but it doesn't address what to me is a key point: The rights and obligations of both parties in this contract.
For example, the college can terminate the scholarship without cause at any time.
The NCAA prohibits freedom of movement by the athletes.
How are grievances with supervisors(coaches) who determine the above compensation handled?
The reason unions came into existence is that when one party has too much power in a contract situation, that one party will, sooner or later, abuse that power. The only way to control that abuse is to give both parties access to the structure of the agreement, which is certainly not the case now.
A classic example is professional sports, where athletes enjoyed all the benefits you mentioned above, plus a salary. But once a union was in place, all of a sudden a much more rational balance of power came into existence between players and owners -- players, for example, now get paid their market value, and have other rights they did not have before.
In college, the market value of a cross country runner is probably zero (or less than zero), but that doesn't mean the runner shouldn't have certain rights in regards to his or her scholarship contract with the university/employer.
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PUmatty
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 16358
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| Posted: 04/11/14 10:47 am ::: |
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| Just because student athletes are determined to be employees doesn't mean that a scholarship would necessarily be taxable. As a graduate student research assistant and teaching assistant at U of Michigan, I was part of union that represented graduate student employees in collective bargaining. My compensation included both tuition and a smallish stipend. That stipend was taxed as income but the tuition waiver was not.
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 04/11/14 10:54 am ::: |
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| PUmatty wrote: |
| Just because student athletes are determined to be employees doesn't mean that a scholarship would necessarily be taxable. As a graduate student research assistant and teaching assistant at U of Michigan, I was part of union that represented graduate student employees in collective bargaining. My compensation included both tuition and a smallish stipend. That stipend was taxed as income but the tuition waiver was not. |
That's not the point folks are making. The rules on these things are quite specific. It's not that there's a union, it's the factual determinations that the NLRB regional director made that are the problem. In order to make the giant leap that he made, and in order to try to ignore NLRB precedent, he made some factual conclusions essentially divorcing the entire aid package, including the tuition waiver, from the educational aspect and called it all "pay" for work. He concluded "grant-in-aid scholarship players compensation is not financial aid." If his factual determinations were correct (which they likely are not, which is why this decision likely won't stand up to full board or court review) then there would likely be no basis in the tax code for considering any portion of the athletic grant in aid to be exempt from taxation.
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Posts: 11050
Location: Lost in D.C.
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| Posted: 04/11/14 11:27 am ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| PUmatty wrote: |
| Just because student athletes are determined to be employees doesn't mean that a scholarship would necessarily be taxable. As a graduate student research assistant and teaching assistant at U of Michigan, I was part of union that represented graduate student employees in collective bargaining. My compensation included both tuition and a smallish stipend. That stipend was taxed as income but the tuition waiver was not. |
That's not the point folks are making. The rules on these things are quite specific. It's not that there's a union, it's the factual determinations that the NLRB regional director made that are the problem. In order to make the giant leap that he made, and in order to try to ignore NLRB precedent, he made some factual conclusions essentially divorcing the entire aid package, including the tuition waiver, from the educational aspect and called it all "pay" for work. He concluded "grant-in-aid scholarship players compensation is not financial aid." If his factual determinations were correct (which they likely are not, which is why this decision likely won't stand up to full board or court review) then there would likely be no basis in the tax code for considering any portion of the athletic grant in aid to be exempt from taxation. |
I just want to re-emphasize that this is a surmise - the IRS has not made any such ruling, the IRS is not bound by the NLRB's findings (which are under a completely different statute that has its own definitions) and the IRS rulings that are out there now take a different position. I won't say that a decision favorable to the union wouldn't influence the IRS position, but I think it's important to understand that any change would not be automatic.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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Location: Heisenberg
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| Posted: 04/11/14 11:48 am ::: |
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| PUmatty wrote: |
| Just because student athletes are determined to be employees doesn't mean that a scholarship would necessarily be taxable. As a graduate student research assistant and teaching assistant at U of Michigan, I was part of union that represented graduate student employees in collective bargaining. My compensation included both tuition and a smallish stipend. That stipend was taxed as income but the tuition waiver was not. |
That's interesting.
The key legal precedent that Northwestern is citing in this litigation is the NLRB's 2004 decision in Brown University, which held that graduate assistants are not employees for purposes of the NLRA.
The Brown decision articulated a four factor test to determine employee status. In Northwestern, the regional director said that Northwestern's scholarship football players, unlike Brown's graduate assistants, factually failed each of the four prongs of the test. Specifically, he found:
1. That undergraduate football players, unlike graduate assistants, are not "primarily students", mainly because of the number of hours per week they purportedly devote to football versus classes and studies.
2. That the football duties of the players were not a "core element of educational degree requirements", unlike the teaching and research duties of graduate assistants, which are required for those graduate assistants to get their academic degree. Key in this determination was that football players receive no academic educational credits for playing football and need not play football to get a degree.
3. That, unlike graduate assistants, academic faculty do not supervise football players.
4. That, unlike compensation to graduate students, which is not pay for services performed but financial aid to attend the university, the compensation paid to football players is pay for services and not financial aid. The director noted that football scholarships are never offered to students unless they intend to provide athletic services, whereas the compensation paid to graduate assistants is the same as that given to graduate fellows for whom no teaching or research is required.
In its appeal, Northwestern is of course challenging the regional director on each of these factors of the Brown test.
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 04/11/14 12:04 pm ::: |
Reply |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| PUmatty wrote: |
| Just because student athletes are determined to be employees doesn't mean that a scholarship would necessarily be taxable. As a graduate student research assistant and teaching assistant at U of Michigan, I was part of union that represented graduate student employees in collective bargaining. My compensation included both tuition and a smallish stipend. That stipend was taxed as income but the tuition waiver was not. |
That's not the point folks are making. The rules on these things are quite specific. It's not that there's a union, it's the factual determinations that the NLRB regional director made that are the problem. In order to make the giant leap that he made, and in order to try to ignore NLRB precedent, he made some factual conclusions essentially divorcing the entire aid package, including the tuition waiver, from the educational aspect and called it all "pay" for work. He concluded "grant-in-aid scholarship players compensation is not financial aid." If his factual determinations were correct (which they likely are not, which is why this decision likely won't stand up to full board or court review) then there would likely be no basis in the tax code for considering any portion of the athletic grant in aid to be exempt from taxation. |
I just want to re-emphasize that this is a surmise - the IRS has not made any such ruling, the IRS is not bound by the NLRB's findings (which are under a completely different statute that has its own definitions) and the IRS rulings that are out there now take a different position. I won't say that a decision favorable to the union wouldn't influence the IRS position, but I think it's important to understand that any change would not be automatic. |
Of course. And, as I said, I think the regional director's findings are nonsense and won't hold up anyhow, so I expect this is simply an academic discussion.
But it's also not the IRS's burden. It's the taxpayer's burden to show that their otherwise taxable income is exempt under the Code. And the IRS rulings are based on a different factual foundation that is inconsistent with this NLRB regional director's factual determinations. And they plainly
distinguish between the portion of the assistance that is for education, and the portion that is for work.
So IF this were all to be upheld (and that would likely require either the 7th Circuit or the Supreme Court to uphold the factual premise that all of this aid is just pay for work) then this would become a very real problem.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 8227
Location: Heisenberg
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| Posted: 04/11/14 1:45 pm ::: |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| the IRS is not bound by the NLRB's findings (which are under a completely different statute that has its own definitions) and the IRS rulings that are out there now take a different position. |
Of course the IRS won't change its position based upon the decision of a NLRB regional director and probably not of the NLRB itself. But if the issue gets up to the federal Circuit Court level, the IRS will begin to take the issue very seriously. It's not uncommon for there to be different tax rules in different federal Circuits because of different rulings on the same issue by different Circuit Courts.
This athlete-as-employee-and-not-a-student issue has Supreme Court written all over it, assuming it reaches the Circuit Court. Once the Supreme Court speaks, magical transmogrifications take place. Who in the multiverse thought the Obamacare penalty was a tax under constitutional law until Justice John Roberts had a change of brain? Now it is, when before it wasn't.
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purduefanatic
Joined: 10 Aug 2011
Posts: 2819
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: 04/11/14 1:48 pm ::: Re: Lucky |
Reply |
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| Nixtreefan wrote: |
| purduefanatic wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| I do think, though, that universities that generate income from sports (not profits) have treated the athletes that generate that income unfairly |
In what way?
I have worked/coached at a few different levels of schools, including BCS programs. The athletes at those schools had the best of everything:
- Tons of gear (shoes, clothes, etc)
- Ability to register for classes prior to the rest of the student body
- Access to computer labs, study rooms, mentors, tutors only available to student-athletes
- Chartered travel, both air and bus (and people that have chartered know how amazing that is)
- Games played in many places that people just don't get to go to very often (Hawai'i, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, foreign tour, etc)
- Dorms that were either the newest and/or closest to the facilities
- Training table meals that were better than anything else offered on campus to students
- Personalized and individual training on the court, in the weight room
- Use of all facilities at no charge whatsoever
- Rock star status on campus
And none of that cost them a penny... |
Very lucky to say the least IF they actually had any time other than the time spent doing all that training and travelling etc. In the real world however kids are not in the best facilities on campus, they do not get priority, some are dumped in classes to keep them eligible or not cause problems for the program, they get limited gear which wears out, they don't travel charter and waste a lot of time with delays in airports, training table is the same every single time, on trips they get only 2 meals provided and are given $7 which would pay for Mcdonalds cheap menu, if there was one close to even visit. They also are put through so many drills, practices and conditioning that they wouldn't have time to use those facilities even if they had any time left.
Then break down the number of hours and compare to the cost of the tuition and possibly it would equate to min wage! Oh and then they are supposed to graduate.
But I am sure some will say that doesn't happen, but it does and I wish there was some kind of watchdog that would oversee such situations as Compliance is a joke and works in the interests of the school and the coach.
It is very difficult for a teenager to come forward and put themselves out there to complain and ultimately put themselves in the line of fire. |
Nix...please re-read the point that Clay was making and that my response was geared toward: universities that may generate income from sports. Thus, much of what you said doesn't pertain to those schools at all.
That said, the picture that you tried to paint in your rant was not very accurate at all. I worked at all the different levels of D-I basketball and never did we dole out only $7 in per diem. Our teams always had at least 2 sets of travel gear as well as 3 sets of practice gear. Each player got a pair of running shoes in the fall and another pair in the spring on top of at least 2 pairs of basketball shoes for the year, and in some cases 3. Also, training table was NEVER the same thing every night...they made sure to have different options.
It's funny, even when we had travel issues/delays, the kids would get annoyed and all that...maybe complain some and just be frustrated. But after it was all said and done, those kids were still very appreciative of all the things done FOR them. They were just thrilled to be able to get a free education while playing the sport they loved. I guess evidently none of that is enough for anybody.
I am just really sour on this whole thing right now.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 8227
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| Posted: 04/11/14 2:19 pm ::: |
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While I agree there is an imbalance of power in certain areas regarding student-athletes, that imbalance is not usually between the athlete and the school, but rather between the athlete and collectives of schools, such as the NCAA and conferences. Restrictions on transfers is the imbalance that leaps first out to me. I don't see how unionization at one school in one sport can address that imbalance.
Imbalances aside, I think most students think athletes, far from being downtrodden proletariat, lead the life of Riley. First, even when they are in high school, they can go with their families on all-expenses-paid visits to a number of schools all over the USA. The National Merit Scholar who graduates first in her class at the Bronx High School of Science gets no such college-visit perks.
Athletes usually have academic counselors, who provide or arrange special tutoring. In the event the IRS were to consider financial aid to be taxable income, they would almost certainly consider the market value hourly wage of these tutors to be taxable imputed income to the athletes.
So also meals and equipment. Athletes get meals, much fancier than what the average middle-income Jill eats on her tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans. I see meals in locker rooms even after games. Athletes get all kinds of clothing and gear from shoe companies.
Athletes often fly charter all over the country and to tournaments in the Caribbean. Once every four years, many fly in the summers for "practices" in Mediterranean Europe.
Some schools have special dorms or apartment complexes for athletes.
Poor, starving things.
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justintyme
Joined: 08 Jul 2012
Posts: 8407
Location: Northfield, MN
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| Posted: 04/11/14 3:13 pm ::: |
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huskiemaniac
Joined: 24 Nov 2004
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Location: NE CT
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| Posted: 04/12/14 2:04 pm ::: Re: UConn basketball's dirty secret |
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| mercfan3 wrote: |
| PUmatty wrote: |
| miller40 wrote: |
Since when are Kentucky players staying until graduation? |
If you read the story, it's not about just graduating. It is also about leaving the university (transferring or leaving higher education) in good academic standing. It would suggest that the one-and-done players at Kentucky are actually going to class and succeeding in the year they are there.
On the face of it, I find that hard to believe as well. Regardless, that UConn number is so bad it should be an embarrassment for anyone associated with that university. |
"good academic standing" is..a load of bs. The actual APR rules are pretty ridiculous.
For example, a senior has to graduate. It's not enough that they finish with top grades. So when seniors Jeff Adrien, Craig Austrie, Gavin Edwards (who, btw, spent his entire Uconn career with a GPA higher than 3.0), and Stanley Robinson decided that they were going to make an attempt at a professional basketball career..but hadn't earned enough credits to graduate, it counted against the school.
Whereas, Kentucky's freshman with their three classes can exit and have it not count against the school.
Now, these numbers are still pretty for Uconn bad. But they were really the result of one huge class...most of which transferred for various reasons. (Some of them being because they couldn't behave themselves..) Add in the few seniors that left without graduating..and you get those numbers.
And the "graduation" rate for most schools is far more pathetic than these statistics show. (So basically..Uconn sucks at school, but so do most top basketball schools. )
And I actually suspect that Shabazz has more than an "athlete's should be paid" bone to pick with the NCAA. Shabazz lost a year in post season play for something that the two senior classes before his freshman season did. (And any other school that would have also been banned for the same reason got an exception.) |
..and there's so much more to it...transfers killed them too...don't understand why the school gets dinged for that because these guys realized they were not going to play but that's beside the point. Kids are eligible with a 2.0 but if they transfer with a 2.5 they're considered academically ineligible.
If schools show improvement and self-impose penalties, the postseason ban may be waived. Uconn did both but were denied- even though schools with less improvement had their bans lifted...one school in particular because they're mainly a black school and can't be held to the same standards, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.
They had already lost 2 scholarships due to low APR...so when the NCAA decided to do the rolling 4 year thing, there was no way uconn could meet the minimum...because they were already down 2 players...they made the rule retroactive, which is ridiculously unfair. It's like getting a speeding ticket for going 10 mph over the speed limit, paying your fine and moving on. 4 years later you get a letter saying anyone exceeding the speed limit will lose their license for a year, and we're going back 4 years. It wasn't the rule then but we're the NCAA so we can do it if we want to.
Going to the NBA used to count against schools to but they had to fix this to protect the one and dones (though really are only 1/2 and dones). Uconn gets very few of them so it's a nonissue for them. They have had many kids go play professionally overseas but it's not the NBA so that costs them points.
You make sense of it. Mark Emerett and Jim Calhoun did not get along. He screwed up at UC and cost them 10s of millions of dollars...then moved to LSU...I don't recall the details but his "mistakes" cost them a lot of money too. He just dances out of town and after all his screw ups, he gets rewarded by running the NCAA...
I suppose uconn could just set up fake classes, allow a couple of non athletes to also take the classes, and give everyone As and all will be right with the world. They can graduate with 4.0s and the NCAA will be proud of how it's educating it's student athletes.
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Posts: 11148
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| Posted: 04/13/14 8:21 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
While I agree there is an imbalance of power in certain areas regarding student-athletes, that imbalance is not usually between the athlete and the school, but rather between the athlete and collectives of schools, such as the NCAA and conferences. Restrictions on transfers is the imbalance that leaps first out to me. I don't see how unionization at one school in one sport can address that imbalance.
Imbalances aside, I think most students think athletes, far from being downtrodden proletariat, lead the life of Riley. First, even when they are in high school, they can go with their families on all-expenses-paid visits to a number of schools all over the USA. The National Merit Scholar who graduates first in her class at the Bronx High School of Science gets no such college-visit perks.
Athletes usually have academic counselors, who provide or arrange special tutoring. In the event the IRS were to consider financial aid to be taxable income, they would almost certainly consider the market value hourly wage of these tutors to be taxable imputed income to the athletes.
So also meals and equipment. Athletes get meals, much fancier than what the average middle-income Jill eats on her tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans. I see meals in locker rooms even after games. Athletes get all kinds of clothing and gear from shoe companies.
Athletes often fly charter all over the country and to tournaments in the Caribbean. Once every four years, many fly in the summers for "practices" in Mediterranean Europe.
Some schools have special dorms or apartment complexes for athletes.
Poor, starving things. |
If indeed athletes have it as good as some believe, then union negotiations would justify that position. In short, colleges would have little to lose.
If, on the other hand, athletes are taken advantage of, as others believe, then union negotiations would redress an imbalance of power that unfairly manipulates players.
So it would seem the best reason for colleges not to recognize unions would be that there are unfair actions on the part of the more powerful party in a contract situation.
You know, the college/NCAA position echoes that of industry in the late 19th century, which was that business owners had an interest in their workers and took care of them -- look at their wages, they have steady jobs, etc. -- and that workers had no need of any kind of organized representation.
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Ex-Ref
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 04/15/14 8:32 pm ::: |
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Whew, talk about saved by the bell. This deus ex machina arrives just in time to save the emaciated Shabazz Napier, Stefanie Dolson and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis from total starvation.
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ClayK
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| Posted: 04/16/14 9:10 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Whew, talk about saved by the bell. This deus ex machina arrives just in time to save the emaciated Shabazz Napier, Stefanie Dolson and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis from total starvation. |
Not to worry. Big Brother always has the best interests of the common people at heart.
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hyperetic
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GlennMacGrady
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beknighted
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| Posted: 04/25/14 8:54 pm ::: |
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It is, one should note, a secret ballot and the ballots are locked away while the appeal to the full NLRB is professing. Not to say it's wrong, but this is the kind of thing people have been known to lie about.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 04/25/14 10:20 pm ::: |
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| beknighted wrote: |
It is, one should note, a secret ballot and the ballots are locked away while the appeal to the full NLRB is professing. Not to say it's wrong, but this is the kind of thing people have been known to lie about. |
Chicago Tribune's Teddy Greenstein agreeing with the 80% "no" vote:
https://twitter.com/TeddyGreenstein/statuses/459756804076208129
Most votes in America are secret, but the press and anyone else can interview or poll the voters after the vote.
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