Opinion ID: 1182729
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Successor Employer Argument

Text: Stated briefly, the successor employer doctrine [5] provides that, when business operations and employees are transferred from one employer to another, the new employer has a duty to bargain with the union previously chosen by the transferred employees where the employing industry remains essentially the same after the transfer of ownership. NLRB v. Burns International Security Services, Inc., 406 U.S. 272, 92 S.Ct. 1571, 32 L.Ed.2d 61 (1972); NLRB v. Dent, 534 F.2d 844, 845-46 (9th Cir.1976). Factors used to determine whether the employing enterprise has remained substantially the same include continuation of the same product lines, departmental organization, job functions, and continuity of the work force. Burns, 406 U.S. at 280 n. 4, 92 S.Ct. at 1578 n. 4, 32 L.Ed.2d at 68-69 n. 4. The factor which has emerged as the most important is continuity of the work force. Howard Johnson Co. v. Detroit Local Joint Executive Board, 417 U.S. 249, 250, 94 S.Ct. 2236, 2237, 41 L.Ed.2d 46, 50 (1974); Pacific Hide and Fur Depot, Inc. v. NLRB, 553 F.2d 609, 611 (9th Cir.1977). Although the new employer may have a duty to bargain with the employees' elected bargaining representative, it is not bound by the old collective bargaining agreement except in certain limited situations. [6] In Burns, the Court first inquired whether the union was the representative selected by a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining purposes. The Court found that the original unit remained appropriate and determined majority union support by finding that the majority of the successor's work force had been employees of the predecessor. These employees had already expressed their choice of a bargaining representative in an election. Because a majority of an appropriate unit had selected a bargaining representative and the employer had a duty to bargain under the Labor Management Relations Act, [7] it was an unfair labor practice for the successor to refuse to bargain. 406 U.S. at 277-78, 92 S.Ct. at 1577, 32 L.Ed.2d at 67. To meet the Burns criteria, Local 71 must show that the former statewide ASOS unit of noncertificated employees remained the appropriate bargaining unit despite the division of the ASOS into twenty-one REAAs. It must also show that it is the chosen representative of a majority of the work force. If Local 71 meets these two criteria, it must find a statute which imposes a duty to bargain analogous to section 8(a)(5) of the Labor Management Relations Act. Because, for the reasons set forth in section III of this opinion, we hold that PERA does not apply to noncertificated employees of school districts, no such statute exists. The successorship doctrine, therefore, does not impose a duty to bargain upon the REAAs. We need not reach the further question of whether the instant case is one of the limited situations in which it would be appropriate to bind the successor to a preexisting collective bargaining agreement.