Sparing the Long Beach school district a round of labor negotiations, a group of supervisors has voted to reject a proposal to form a bargaining unit under the leadership of the Teamsters.

Three-fourths of the 311 classified supervisors who cast ballots rejected the proposal to join the California Teamsters Local 911, a state labor board revealed Tuesday.

Last December, the Teamsters succeeded in getting a majority of employee signatures needed to hold an election to form a new union. Ninety percent of the classified supervisors, who work in food service, maintenance and other areas, turned out to vote.

District spokesman Dick Van Der Laan says the election result showed support for the district.

"The district will continue to work with classified supervisors to make sure that their concerns and needs are addressed,' he said.

Joy Dowell, an office supervisor at James Madison Elementary, says she doesn't feel that the Teamsters could have represented her any better than the district now does.

"Why do I want to pay them $500 a year for that?' she said. "I already have excellent benefits. And (the Teamsters) were really underhanded in the way they approached us.'

Dowell says union representatives harassed employees at home and duped them into signing documents requesting an election. "I felt like I was lied to,' she said.

Bill Davis, business representative and legal counsel for Local 911, said he was disappointed by the election result. The union acted appropriately, he added.

"They weren't intrusive,' he said. "Basically, if someone said, 'I'm not interested in the union,' that was the last contact we had with him.'