The National Labor Relations Board is advancing its campaign to define student athletes as university employees who can be organized by unions.

In mid-December, the NLRB’s Los Angeles regional office supported the filing of unfair labor practice charge against the University of Southern California, the NCAA and Pac-12 Conference on behalf of USC football players and the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, said her support for the ULP by saying it “is based on a determination that USC, the Pac-12 Conference, and the NCAA, as joint employers, have maintained unlawful rules and unlawfully misclassified scholarship basketball and football players as mere ‘student-athletes’ rather than employees entitled to protections under our law.”

The move is the logical follow-up to a memo issued by Abruzzo last year calling for NLRB regional directors to forward these kinds of ULPs to the board, including the one sought by the union trying to organize USC against the same parties If the ULP is granted, this could be the first step in a lengthy legal battle, legal experts predict.

“If this position prevails, institutions of higher education, athletic conferences, and/or the NCAA would be legally obligated to engage in collective bargaining with unions representing college athletes over wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” said Daniel Altchek and Carolyn Pellegrini, attorneys with the Saul Ewing law firm.

While federal labor law applies only to private employers, the general counsel’s position that the NCAA, Pac-12, and university are joint employers, if upheld, could encompass athletes at NCAA-affiliated public institutions as well, they note.

“If this position prevails, institutions of higher education, athletic conferences, and/or the NCAA would be legally obligated to engage in collective bargaining with unions representing college athletes over wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment,” Altchek and Pellegrini said.