Via Washington Examiner:

The National Labor Relations Board rejected a bid by football players at Northwestern University to form a union. In an unanimous decision released Monday, the board said it lacked jurisdiction in the matter.

“By statute the board does not have jurisdiction over state-run colleges and universities,” it said. The board is the main federal labor law enforcement agency. Its members are nominated by the president and it currently has a 3-2 Democratic majority.

The announcement reverses a March 2014 decision by a board regional director, who ruled that the players were employees of the university, not students. Therefore, they had the right to form a union.

While that ruling applied only to Northwestern athletes, it had major implications for college athletics generally, being the first time a student-athlete group has been granted collective bargaining rights. Other groups could have cited it as a precedent if they tried to unionize.