Employees of Lowell Telecommunications Corporation scored a victory yesterday with news that the National Labor Relations Board certified their union, making the workers members of NABET Local 18.

LTC’s Board had until last Friday night to file an objection to the election results of  December 2022, when the employees voted to unionize. No objections were filed by the law firm representing the Board and the certification became official yesterday.

In a message thanking the workers, the new union writes; “We reached out to you all for community support, and you delivered, showing that Lowell stands with us in our efforts to secure the rights and protections that all workers deserve on the job. We can’t tell you how grateful we are for all the solidarity you have shown us. We couldn’t have gotten to this point without it. We remain humbled and feel prouder than ever to be serving this community.”

With that logjam in the process now broken, the next step could prove as, if not more contentious as collective bargaining begins toward a contract, with one source telling InsideLowell “my gut feeling is it will drag out, then public pressure will have to be brought back in.”