The National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., yesterday unanimously rejected Point Park University's attempt to halt a union organizing vote by faculty.

The decision clears the way for ballots, impounded since the election, to be counted within the next seven days, said Gerald Kobell, director of the NLRB's Pittsburgh office.

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh/Communication Workers of America is seeking to unionize 67 employees on the Downtown campus. In a ruling in April, Kobell said the workers were eligible to organize, rejecting the school's contention that faculty were managers and thus not covered by the nation's labor relations act.

Point Park subsequently filed a request for the full board in Washington to hear an appeal of Kobell's ruling. Yesterday's 3-0 vote denied the school's request.

A lawyer representing the union, Claudia Davidson, said yesterday's decision means the faculty's wishes on whether to have a union will finally be known.

"We've been at this for over a year to try to get this administration to simply allow the professors to vote," she said. "They threw hurdles up and we have now passed over them successfully."

The university said the earliest it would have a statement would be today.

"We're just getting the ruling. It's being reviewed," Point Park spokeswoman Ginny Frizzi said yesterday.

The guild also represents about 290 employees at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Valley Independent of Monessen.

The board found that in the case of one employee, Bill Moushey, executive director of the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania, the question of whether he is supervisory and ineligible appeared to raise a substantive issue.

It decided to allow his vote under challenge.

Kobell said both sides will be asked to decide on an agreeable time to tally the ballots, currently locked in a safe in the NLRB's Pittsburgh office.

"It depends on when the lawyers and parties are available to come in. They're entitled to observe the count," he said.