I 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4693 
To establish collective bargaining rights for college athletes, and for other 
purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 23, 2025 
Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania (for herself, Ms. ANSARI, Mr. CASAR, Mr. CLEAVER, 
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. OMAR, Mrs. RAMIREZ, 
Mr. THANEDAR, Ms. TLAIB, Ms. TOKUDA, and Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ) in-
troduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Edu-
cation and Workforce 
A BILL 
To establish collective bargaining rights for college athletes, 
and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘College Athlete Right 
to Organize Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The National Labor Relations Act (29 
U.S.C. 151 et seq.) seeks to remedy the inequality 
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of bargaining power between employees and employ-
ers primarily through establishing and protecting the 
rights of employees to self-organize and designate 
representatives of their own choosing for the purpose 
of negotiating the terms and conditions of their em-
ployment or other mutual aid or protection. 
(2) Labor organizations often originate to rem-
edy unfair and exploitative labor practices by em-
ployers through assisting employees in securing more 
equitable terms and conditions of their employment, 
including fair compensation and safe working condi-
tions, which individual employees would be unlikely 
to negotiate successfully for on their own. 
(3) Labor organizations serve unique and essen-
tial purposes for professional athletes competing in 
sports leagues, where it is desirable to establish uni-
form rules and standards across multiple employers. 
These rules and standards bear significant con-
sequences to the athletes in terms of compensation, 
health and safety, and the ability or lack thereof for 
athletes to choose their employer, among other 
issues related to the athletes’ well-being. 
(4) The formation of labor organizations rep-
resenting athletes in professional sports leagues in 
the United States has helped end exploitative prac-
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tices by team owners and management, particularly 
through establishing collective-bargaining agree-
ments that have secured athletes a fair share of the 
revenues their talent and labor produces, as well as 
more equitable terms of their employment and pro-
tections for their short- and long-term health. 
(5) College athletes face exploitative and unfair 
labor practices by the National Collegiate Athletic 
Association (referred to in this section as the 
‘‘NCAA’’) and its member institutions, primarily 
through the denial of the basic economic and labor 
rights of such athletes, which the NCAA and its 
member institutions have justified by defining col-
lege athletes as amateurs. 
(6) The NCAA and its member institutions 
have denied college athletes a fair wage for their 
labor by colluding to cap compensation; they main-
tain strict and exacting control over the terms and 
conditions of college athletes’ labor; and they exer-
cise the ability to terminate an athlete’s eligibility to 
compete if the athlete violates these terms and con-
ditions. 
(7) College athletes exhibit the markers of em-
ployment as established under the common law defi-
nition of the term ‘‘employee’’: They perform a valu-
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able service for their respective colleges under a con-
tract for hire in the form of grant-in-aid agreements; 
these agreements assert significant control over how 
athletes perform their work and the conditions under 
which they work; and they receive compensation in 
the form of grant-in-aid and stipends in exchange 
for their athletic services. 
(8) To establish more equitable terms and con-
ditions for college athletes’ labor, college athletes 
need representation of their own choosing to nego-
tiate collective-bargaining agreements with their re-
spective colleges and the athletic conferences that 
help set rules and standards across an entire league. 
(9) To organize effectively, college athletes 
must be able to form collective bargaining units 
across institutions of higher education that compete 
against each other, including within athletic con-
ferences; and, accordingly, to establish effective col-
lective bargaining rights for college athletes under 
this Act, the National Labor Relations Act must be 
amended to cover both private and public institu-
tions of higher education to the extent that college 
athletes attending such institutions fall within the 
definition of ‘‘employee’’ under that Act, as amended 
by this Act. 
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