NORTH Carolina union for public-sector workers Seanc said today that it will accept membership applications from scholarship student athletes at public universities.

The State Employees Association of North Carolina’s governing board has voted to open the union’s membership to athletes at the state’s 17 public campuses as state employees.

“What the group has definitively decided is to change our own membership rules to allow them to join,” Seanc spokeswoman Toni Davis said. 

“Everything beyond that is really in a planning and development stage.”

To join, the athlete would pay the $9 monthly dues paid by teachers, prison officers, healthcare workers and others working for state agencies.

However, North Carolina state law expressly prohibits public workers from collectively bargaining.

Seanc, which has 55,000 members and is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, lobbies legislators on issues ranging from pay raises to retirement benefits and healthcare coverage for public workers.