A four-year battle to become a unionized workplace has ended successfully for workers at the City University of New York's Research Foundation.

Foundation workers at CUNY's Graduate Center voted overwhelmingly in a National Labor Relations Board election to join the Professional Staff Congress, NYSUT's affiliate at CUNY.

"The PSC will be proud to represent them," said union president Barbara Bowen after ballots were counted Oct. 4 in the NLRB election.

Bowen vowed that bargaining for a contract for the employees would begin as soon as possible.

The victory caps a long struggle with Research Foundation management, which filed repeated legal and procedural challenges, first to the workers' efforts to hold an election and then to have the votes counted.

"The CUNY Research Foundation did everything under the sun to prevent their employees' voices from being heard," Bowen said. "That just shows you why they need a union."

Foundation management claimed that graduate students, who work at the foundation in a variety of positions including research and clerical jobs, were not "employees" and thus not covered by federal labor law.

Beginning in 2003, those claims were rejected at every level of the NLRB, culminating in a unanimous board ruling in June that ordered the ballot count to go forward.

The overall vote was 73 to 16 for representation by the PSC.

Foundation employees work on 23 CUNY campuses, helping faculty and staff locate and win research grants.

NLRB has ruled that the foundation is a separate, private entity, which is why the unionization process was governed by the NLRB rather than the state Public Employment Relations Board.

PSC represents foundation workers at three locations: the central office, where it has a contract; and at New York City College of Technology and LaGuardia Community College. Both of those units are in negotiations for a first contract.