The Overenrollment Story Continues

Saturday, November 13, 2021

From the LA Times:

...Recent news about UC Santa Barbara’s plans to build a 4,500-bed mega-dorm with tiny rooms and few windows — derisively dubbed “Dormzilla” — sparked outrage and national headlines. But the more urgent problem is a campus affordable housing crisis hitting thousands of students across California’s three public university systems — leaving some unsheltered, others with mounting debt burdens and many filled with anxiety and stress.

More than 16,000 students at the University of California and California State University were on waitlists for housing this fall, despite construction of 36,000 beds by both systems since 2015, according to a new report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. UC Berkeley alone turned away more than 5,500 housing requests this fall, and 40% of undergraduates are unable to live in the city due to scarce supply and high rents, the campus reports...

The growing housing stresses are rooted in a confluence of factors. Under political pressure to boost enrollment, UC added 27,583 undergraduates — but about 22,000 beds — since 2015. Community protests, environmental concerns and litigation have slowed down or halted at least six UC housing projects in the last three years...

The pandemic has also played a role. UC San Diego, for instance, eliminated tripleoccupancy rooms this fall due to COVID-19 restrictions; the net loss in housing capacity caused the campus to eliminate its two-year housing guarantee until fall 2023, the Triton student newspaper reported. Campuses had to set aside dorm rooms to quarantine those who are infected with the virus or who had been closely exposed to it. UC Berkeley, for example, took out 130 rooms.

Similar concerns also affected the housing market in Santa Barbara. More students are opting for fewer roommates to minimize the risk of infection, a choice that has left more of them scrambling for places to live, said Robin Unander, a UC Santa Barbara student

legal services advisor...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-12/california-housing-crisishits-unhoused-college-students.

The Employment Status of Student-Athletes Continues to Be Tested

Sunday, November 14, 2021

The story below refers to private universities and colleges which are under the jurisdiction of the federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). However, much of the legislation governing public sector collective bargaining and related labor matters in California higher ed including UC - under the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) is similar. Were the NLRB to make a ruling regarding student-athletes, PERB might well follow.

Athlete Group Tests NCAA Player Rights With Labor Complaint By Josh Eidelson November 12, 2021, Bloomberg A new advocacy group has filed a U.S. labor board complaint against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, in what could be the first step in determining whether the government will treat college athletes as employees with union rights. The National Labor Relations Board filing accused the NCAA of violating federal labor law by misclassifying its players as “student-athletes,” rather than employees with workplace protections. The complaint was filed Wednesday and assigned to the labor board’s Indianapolis office, according to the agency’s docket. The NCAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NLRB enforces U.S. law protecting private sector employees’ rights to organize and protest, and its process for investigating claims can include evaluating whether workers are employees even if the company they work for claims they are not. In a 2015 case, NLRB members rejected a request to hold a unionization vote among Northwestern University’s football players, saying that doing so wouldn’t advance the purposes of U.S. labor law. Two months ago, however, the NLRB’s new general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, stated her view that at least some college athletes are in fact employees. Abruzzo, a Joe Biden appointee, said that misclassifying them as “student-athletes” and telling them they’re excluded from labor law would itself be illegal. If her office pursues the new filing and accuses NCAA of breaking the law, current NLRB board members could get their own chance to rule on whether college athletes are employees. The complaint was filed by the College Basketball Players Association, a recently-formed advocacy group. Co-founder Michael Hsu, who started the association with his cousin, an attorney and former college athlete, said in an interview that he tried to find a current player to file a complaint. Several he

spoke with were too concerned about being retaliated against or causing harm to their school or their sport. After hearing interviews in which Abruzzo discussed how even people who don’t work at a company can file a labor board complaint against it, he decided to do so himself. “I figured, let’s find out,” Hsu said. “Let’s give Jennifer Abruzzo and the NLRB the ball, and let them run with it.”

Full story at https://www.bloomberg.com/ news/articles/2021-11-12/ athlete-group-testsncaa- player-rights-with-labor- complaint.