It’s a rarity that a professional minor league has a union for its players. This may change if the basketball players in the NBA G League vote to become a union, according to ESPN.
The ‘minor league’ system of the NBA is considering forming a union for the players with the support of The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). There would need to be more than 50% of players signing on to obtain that goal.
The players were to begin voting over the weekend by electronic transmission.
Adrian Wojnarowski, senior NBA Insider at ESPN stated, “Among agents and players,
there’s been optimism that the vote will render the union’s formation—which would allow the union to collectively bargain issues with the NBA and G League. The NBPA sent G League players a video of veteran player Andre Ingram describing the kinds of issues that a union could assist in collective bargaining with the NBA. Issues for G League players in the past have included housing, salary, and travel.“The union would be separate from the NBPA and serve independently with its own constitution, bylaws, and leadership structure.”
Back in February, the NBPA Board of Representatives voted to support the formation of the union for G League players. The NBPA had representatives at the 2018 and 2019 G League showcases, the NBPA had representatives who were there to discuss the idea of the formation of a union with a significant number of players from the developmental league.