LEWISTON — Bates College formally withdrew its request Monday for the National Labor Relations Board to review the issue of whether all of its union-eligible employees can be in the same union.

The college said the issue is moot now because its workers voted against joining a union.

The NLRB, a federal agency in the nation’s capital, responded by closing the case.

Bates workers voted 256-186 against joining the Maine Service Employees Association.

Cynthia Phinney, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, said in a letter to the editor that Bates relied on anti-union lawyers and at least one consultant to help it “run anti-union meetings, stall the election, and raise doubts and fear among employees about making change.”

But many Bates workers said they didn’t see a reason to form a union and worried that doing so might damage what they view as a generally harmonious relationship with the college administration.