LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles office of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint Thursday against USC, the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA, alleging that the three joint employers have maintained unlawful rules by "misclassifying" college athletes in men's and women's basketball and football as "student-athletes" rather than employees who are entitled to protections under the National Labor Relations Act.
"The conduct of USC, the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA, as joint employers, deprives their players of their statutory right to organize and to join together to improve their working and playing conditions if they wish to do so," NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said in a statement. "Our aim is to ensure that these players, as workers like any other, can fully and freely exercise their rights."
Abruzzo first made public her position that certain college athletes should be classified as employees in Sept. 2021. In Feb. 2022, the National College Players Association's executive director Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA football player, filed a charge against USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA, alleging unfair labor practices.
