President Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would require federal authorities to clarify whether university athletes can be considered employees of their schools, according to a draft copy of the order obtained this week by ESPN.
The draft asks the Secretary of Labor and the National Board of Labor Relations to “determine and implement appropriate measures regarding clarifying the state of university athletes.” The draft establishes that the work state of university athletes must “maximize the educational benefits and opportunities” that schools can provide through their athletics departments.
University sports leaders and several Republican legislators have been trying in recent years to prevent athletes from obtaining the rights of employees, because they say that many athletics departments could not pay the additional costs that would come with employment.
Although Trump's potential order would not explicitly prohibit employment (the President does not have the authority to make that decision in an executive order), he echoes those concerns while demanding that the NLRB and the Secretary of Labor clarify the state of the employees for university athletes.
The news of a possible executive order was found with surprise around university sports earlier this week, after CBS News news on Tuesday night. The sources warned ESPN that Trump might not happen to the executive order, that it seems to support university athletics instead of prescribing any specific transformative change.
The White House Press Office did not respond to a request for comments.
The order, if signed in its current draft form, would also establish a commission to determine the ways in which the Trump administration could support “the preservation of collegiate athletic opportunities”, a process that would include athletes, schools, conferences, legislators and other leaders with experience in the industry.
The draft also calls other federal authorities, such as the Federal Commerce Commission, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education, to take measures to create policies that support the future of university sports and the training that these programs provide to the future American Olympics.
The Trump office expressed interest months in an executive order that would help address part of the current agitation in the university sports industry, but has not yet acted.
Administrators have been asking Congress for several years to create a new federal law to help schools recover part of the power that has been eroded by antitrust demands in the last decade. These leaders have requested a law that prevents athletes from becoming employees and providing the NCA to an antitrust exemption that would allow them to make their own rules, many of which would limit the income potential of the players.
If the NLRB will decide that university athletes were not considered employees, athletes could not form a union and collectively regulate due to a salary increase or other benefits.
Earlier this week, the members of the Chamber Committee of the Chamber voted to move forward with the legislative process on a bill that would grant to the leaders of the NCAA and the University the type of protection they are looking for. More than a dozen bills that address the future of university sports have been introduced in the last five years, but none has not yet reached a complete vote in the Chamber or the Senate.
The representative Jim Jordan (R-OHIO), who presides over the Judicial Committee of the House of Representatives, told ESPN on Thursday that an executive order would not change the plans to continue advancing with a bill in Congress.
“Our staff has had conversations with the White House about it,” Jordan said. “Yes and when I arrive, it will not contradicted the objectives and intentions of our legislation.”
The athletes began to receive payments directly from their schools on July 1, an important change in the university sports business that came as a result of a recent antimonopoly agreement. Each school is allowed to pay up to $ 20.5 million to their athletes in the next academic year, according to the terms of the agreement.
It is likely that the new limits for compensation and the mechanism to enforce those limits invite more demands in the future if Congress does not give the NCAA an antitrust exemption. Trump does not have the authority to grant an antitrust exemption through the executive order.
Several soccer coaches and athletics directors have recently said that they believe it would make more sense, and provide more stability, if their players were considered employees and could bargain collectively.
“The best way to do it is to do it where players are employed and you have a salary limit,” said Louisville coach Jeff Brohm, ESPN earlier this month. “If players are paid, why don't we do it in the right way? Amateurism is no longer there. We do not intend to be.”
The new system for compensation treats players as independent contractors who receive money in exchange for rights to use their name, image and likeness in university promotions instead of employees who are paid for their performance in the field. But contracts between schools and players could strengthen the legal argument that athletes should be granted the rights that other employees have.
Two different groups of university athletes who requested the NLRB for the right to form unions withdrew their cases at the end of last year shortly after Trump was chosen.
There is an ongoing federal case (Johnson v. NCAA) that argues that athletes must be considered employees under the Law of Fair Labor Standards. The lawyer's lawyer in that case, Paul McDonald, has previously argued that any action that prevents university athletes from being employed would be unconstitutional because he would treat work athletes so different from the work of other students who have work of the campus.
