Against a backdrop of financial crisis in public higher education, nonfaculty professionals at the University of Massachusetts voted 3-to-1 yesterday to form a union.

Officials of the winning group, Service Employees International Union Local 509, said they're ready to tackle the financial issues stalking UMass campuses.

"We're going to get right in there," said Gerry Casey, assistant director of the union.

UMass officials did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press.

Yesterday's vote follows three unsuccessful attempts to unionize professionals at UMass in the past 11 years, most recently in 1986, and observers credited yesterday's healthy turnout on better organization as well as the gloomy financial climate.

The state union beat out the rival Professional Staff Organization by a vote of 686 to 83, according to the State Labor Relations Commission. Two hundred people voted against a union.

SEIU was put on the ballot after a group of professionals at the Amherst and Boston campuses, eager to avoid the mistakes of previous years, interviewed several unions. The rival union was put on the ballot by Gerald A. Quarles, head of a professional's non-union campus association.

Quarles had emphasized the oncampus origination of PSO and said he did not believe a two-union ticket would split the vote.

Yesterday, Quarles was on vacation and could not be reached, his secretary said.

Professors, librarians, clerical workers, blue-collar workers and police at UMass already have union representation, but the group of about 1200 professionals, which include technicians, managers lawyers, nurses and architects, has been difficult to organize in the past, said Tom Sharpe, a SEIU spokesperson.

"They were one of the very last unorganized groups left at the university and one of the very few left in state government," he said. "We look forward to this happening in other states and think it's a good sign."

Massachusetts' public higher education was declared in a state of financial emergency earlier this week by the Board of Regents of Higher Education. That followed a $35 million statewide cut ordered in the face of the state's $340 million deficit.

UMass administrators have indicated they don't want to begin laying off employees, but Casey said that will be a key concern of the fledgling union.

"I think we'll do everything that we can do to pursue or prevent layoffs," she said. "Failing that, if people must be laid off we'll work with the university and hope they'll work with us."