NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Production workers at Boeing’s South Carolina plant voted Wednesday not to join the Machinists, maintaining southern reluctance toward unionization.

Vote totals weren’t immediately available. Under NLRB rules, workers must wait a year before another union vote. In a statement, Machinists organizer Mike Evans said the union was disappointed with the vote but vowed to stay in close touch with Boeing workers to figure out next steps.

“Ultimately it will be the workers who dictate what happens next,” Evans said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to talk with hundreds of Boeing workers over the past few years. Nearly every one of them, whether they support the union or not, have improvements they want to see at Boeing. Frankly, they deserve better.”

The vote among nearly 3,000 workers preceded by two days a visit by President Donald Trump to attend the rollout of the first Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner from the aircraft maker’s campus.

If successful, the balloting on whether employees should join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would have sent a significant message to politicians in the region and Washington that workers here want the same protections and benefits as those in other areas. And, to leaders trying to recruit businesses by promoting their states’ lack of union presence, it’d it would have made their jobs more difficult.

But this most recent test of Southern acceptance of collective bargaining movements was an uphill battle for the union and its backers.

The union vote came after Trump blasted Boeing for the cost of building a new Air Force One.