Skip to main content

NCAA Again Caught Up In Student Athlete Compensation Issue: Former University of Houston Soccer Player Brings FLSA Suit for Compensation


Early last week, a former University of Houston soccer player filed a lawsuit on behalf of herself and Division I student athletes against the NCAA and all NCAA Division I member schools.  (Yes, that includes even my own alma matter...I will let you guess which one).  

The plaintiff alleged that the University of Houston violated the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") as she was an uncompensated student athlete and should have been classified as a temporary employee.  Note, if she had been classified as a temporary employee, she would have been entitled to receive compensation.  In essence, the lawsuit argues that students in work study programs (such as serving as ushers at sporting events, working at the library, washing dishes at the food halls, etc.) perform non-academic functions for the benefit of the NCAA and the schools.  As a result, these work study participants meet the criteria to be classified as part time temporary employees and therefore receive compensation.  The argument follows that since student athletes also perform non-academic functions, the student athletes are therefore part time temporary employees and subsequently entitled to be compensated by the school as required by the FLSA.  

Note, the other defendants are included on the grounds that they all conspired to set up a system where these student athletes are uncompensated.  Logical argument to make, as Division I schools do not compensate their student athletes. 

As for the issue of whether scholarships are "compensation, the lawsuit makes the argument that scholarships that are awarded to student athletes are not compensation and therefore not applicable for several reasons.  First, many scholarships are treated as grants and are not offered to every athlete.  As well, scholarships are often intended to defray the costs of attending school rather than be used solely as the student athlete chooses. 

Readers of the blog are aware of attempts by the Northwestern University football team to unionize earlier this year.  This is another example of student athletes attempting to distinguish themselves as not just students, but athletes entitled to compensation for their work.  Will it pay off?  I do not know.  But this will certainly not be the last time we hear about this type of issue.
 

A copy of the lawsuit can be found here:  http://ftpcontent2.worldnow.com/wthr/pdf/ncaalawsuit.pdf

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per