Members of Northwestern University?s football team have filled the appropriate paperwork with a regional NLRB office in Chicago in order to unionize. Both Northwestern and the NCAA have stated that student-athletes are not employees and so collective bargaining would be inappropriate. The movement was backed by Ramogi Huma, former leader of the United Steelworkers, president and founder of the National College Players Association and the potential union College Athlete Players Association (CAPA). At the center of the movement to form a union is the players concerns about their studies, health, and the financial relationship with the NCAA. Student athletes are often left to pay for their own expenses during and after college that were a direct result of playing a game by rules that they had no say in.
See "College athletes take steps to form labor union", Daniel Uthman, USA Today, January 28, 2014