(Bloomberg) -- A group of Alphabet Inc. contract staff working on content for Google’s support pages voted to unionize, setting up a likely contentious court battle over whether the internet company is legally their boss.

The US National Labor Relations Board counted ballots in an election on Monday, with 26 eligible employees voting for the union and two voting against. Eight more ballots were challenged, but not enough to affect the outcome of the election.

The workers, whose jobs have included improving the quality of answers in Google’s search engine and artificial intelligence chatbot, are employed through consulting firm Accenture Plc. Some ballots were challenged because Accenture argued those workers’ roles were “supervisory,” or jobs that oversee the work of others. The company argued that those employees shouldn’t be in the union.

“We acknowledge the right of our people to form or join unions, and we work cooperatively with works councils and labor unions in various countries around the globe,” Didi Blackwood, an Accenture spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. “We will continue to participate in the NLRB process.”

Google says that none of the staffers are its employees. But in September, a regional director of the NLRB rejected the company’s arguments, concluding that the Alphabet unit is in fact a “joint employer” of the Accenture staff. That means the company exercises enough control over the workers to be liable for their treatment and — if they choose to unionize — is obligated to collectively bargain with them. 

In a statement, a Google spokesperson said the company had no objection to the workers electing a union to represent them. “We’ve long had many contracts with unionized suppliers,” said Courtenay Mencini, the spokesperson. “However, as we made clear in our active appeal to the NLRB, we are not a joint employer as we simply do not control their employment terms or working conditions – this matter is between the workers and their employer, Accenture.”

The workers include writers, graphic designers and other staffers, and they’ve helped create internal and external content, including all of the materials for Google Help support pages.

“This is the culmination of over two years of organizing for us,” said Sarah Murphy, one of the employees. “We hope it’s one domino that continues to help knock down other dominoes, so that we can have better labor and worker rights in tech.”

The treatment of contract staff has been a flashpoint for protest at Alphabet for years, and a primary focus for the Alphabet Workers Union, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America. In 2018, contract workers became the majority of Alphabet’s global workforce, exceeding the number of direct employees of the company.

Despite the Alphabet Workers Union’s victory, the workers are unlikely to get to negotiate anytime soon with the internet giant. It’s been a slow process for a different group of Alphabet contract staff — hired via Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. to work on YouTube Music in Texas — who voted 41-to-0 to unionize in April. The election followed another NLRB regional director deeming them to be jointly employed by Google. 

NLRB members in Washington upheld that ruling in July, meaning the company — for the first time in the US — is legally obligated to negotiate. But Google has signaled it will still refuse to negotiate with the YouTube staff, meaning that dispute is likely to end up in federal appeals court. The union of Google Help workers is likely heading in that direction too.

In the meantime, the NLRB has been investigating a complaint AWU filed in August that accuses Alphabet and Accenture of illegally terminating most of the workers who would be represented by the union. The companies have denied wrongdoing.

(Updates with comments from Google spokesperson in the sixth paragraph.)

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