STUDENT OR EMPLOYEE?

Dear Editor: 

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that college football players at Northwestern University are in actuality “employees” of the university due to their time commitment to the sport” and “their scholarships were tied directly to their performance on the field.”   As a result, they can form a union.  Say goodbye to the so-called “student/athlete.” 

This brings up interesting possibilities.  If they are truly “employees,” as the NLRB has ruled, their pay, desire for share of ticket sales, bowl game bonus are all taxable on a federal and state level.  In addition their other “employee” benefits compensation package of full scholarships: tuition and fees $45,527, room & board $13,862 and books and supplies $1871, for a total of $61,260 per year, should also be taxed since they are “employees” and no longer just student/athletes.  Any other “employees” at the University have to pay those taxes and have deductions for Social Security and Medicare. 

If this spreads, say goodbye to major college athletics as we know it today.  The student/athlete will become a thing of the past.  You have to be fish or fowl (student or employee.)  Some will say that this won’t happen and is just a negative way to look at the desire to put money into the hands of the players. Don’t kid yourself.  It will take our favorite sports away from the university and NCAA and put it into the hands of labor unions, which don’t have a place in college sports.    

 

 

History Repeats Itself

History has a way of always repeating itself, and sometimes on a speeded up timetable.

In 1936 Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics in an effort to show the world that it had recovered from the First World War and had reawakened as a true world power.  Three years later, in March of 1939 Hitler and his armies marched into the Sudetenland portion of Czechoslovakia under the pretext of protecting the “ethnic German” population living there. The world stood by while England and France signed the Munich Agreement for “Peace in our time,” to guarantee that Hitler would leave the rest of Czechoslovakia alone.  Later the same month (March) Germany moved into the remainder of a weak Czechoslovakia without a fight.

Last month Russia’s hosted the Olympics in an effort to show the world, and mainly its domestic audience, that it had rebuilt itself after the break-up of the Soviet Union.  In a very short time President Putin ordered troops into the Crimea region of the Ukraine under the pretext of protecting the “ethnic Russian” population living there.  How long will it be until Russia moves into the rest of a weak Ukraine ala Nazi Germany?

The rest of the world can complain and take steps to isolate Putin, but he doesn’t care.  His KGB training and political infighting plays to the Russian population and shows his and the country’s strength against the USA and Western Europe. Of course other former territories of the USSR should now worry about Putin’s intentions towards them.

Is it worth going to war over?  Of course not.  But welcome to the Cold War Part II.