A campaign to bring charter schools into the union fold is poised to register its first victory: Teachers at a charter school in Queens have voted to make the United Federation of Teachers their exclusive bargaining agent. Because charter schools operate outside regular school district regulations, many are not unionized. Some charter school administrators say they are happy to be free of contract regulations, which they say can make it hard to run a good school. Teachers unions decry the lack of representation, and several have waged organizing drives at charter schools.

An overwhelming vote by teachers at the Merrick Academy–Queens Public Charter School earlier this month could make it the first city charter school to voluntarily join the union in several years. The vote will not be final until the school’s board of directors decides early next month whether to enter a contract or to resist. The board chairman, Gerald Karikari, said no decision has yet been reached.

The president of the UFT, Randi Weingarten, said the union’s drive to organize charter schools has accelerated recently in response to requests from charter school teachers. In a letter she sent this fall, Ms. Weingarten invited charter school teachers to register for seminars, call a “charter school teacher hotline,” or join a listserv the union had set up for charter teachers.

A policy director at the New York Charter School Association, Peter Murphy, said he supports teachers’ right to join a union, provided they are not lured under false promises a charter school’s tight budget might not allow.

A board member, state Senator Malcolm Smith, said he supports the teachers’ right to organize, adding that meeting standards should be a school’s top goal.