## Facts

- Lockheed contracted with Wackenhut to provide plant-protection services at its Ontario, California facility.
- In February 1967, Wackenhut’s guards selected United Plant Guard Workers of America (UPG) as exclusive representative in an NLRB election; UPG was certified in March 1967.
- In April 1967, Wackenhut and UPG executed a three-year collective-bargaining agreement covering the guards.
- Lockheed later replaced Wackenhut after soliciting bids; bidders were informed of UPG’s certification and the existing labor contract.
- Burns won the contract and began operations July 1, employing 42 guards: 27 formerly employed by Wackenhut and 15 from Burns’s other locations; the bargaining unit and work remained essentially the same.
- Burns refused to recognize or bargain with UPG and refused to honor the Wackenhut–UPG agreement.
- Burns instead required guards to join a different union and recognized that union at the Lockheed facility.
- The NLRB found violations of NLRA §§ 8(a)(5) and 8(a)(1) and ordered Burns to bargain with UPG, comply with the prior contract, and provide retroactive monetary relief.
- The court of appeals enforced the bargaining order but rejected the contract-assumption and related monetary remedies; the NLRB sought Supreme Court review.

## Issues

1. Whether a successor employer that continues the same operation and hires a majority of its workforce from the predecessor’s unionized unit must recognize and bargain with the incumbent, recently certified union.
2. Whether the NLRB may require such a successor to be bound by the substantive terms of the predecessor’s collective-bargaining agreement absent the successor’s assumption of that agreement.
3. Whether monetary relief compelling retroactive application of the predecessor’s contract can be sustained as a remedy for an unlawful unilateral change in terms and conditions of employment.

## Decision

- The Court affirmed the order requiring Burns to recognize and bargain with UPG because the unit was unchanged and a majority of the workforce consisted of employees previously represented by UPG.
- The Court reversed the Board’s order requiring Burns to honor and give retroactive effect to the predecessor’s collective-bargaining agreement because Burns had not agreed to assume it.
- The Court rejected the Board’s unilateral-change rationale for restitutionary relief because Burns set initial employment terms when it began operations and did not “change” preexisting terms within an established employment relationship.

## Legal Principles

- When a successor continues substantially the same operation in an unchanged bargaining unit and hires a majority of employees from the predecessor’s union-represented workforce, the successor generally must recognize and bargain with the incumbent union under NLRA §§ 8(a)(5) and 9(a).
- A successor’s duty to bargain with the incumbent union does not, by itself, bind the successor to the substantive provisions of the predecessor’s collective-bargaining agreement absent assumption or agreement.
- Setting initial terms upon taking over operations is not an unlawful unilateral change where the successor had no prior bargaining relationship with the unit; bargaining obligations constrain later changes once the duty to bargain attaches.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that Burns, as a successor with continuity of operations and a majority workforce drawn from the predecessor’s represented unit, had to bargain with the incumbent union, but could not be compelled to adopt or provide retroactive monetary relief based on a collective-bargaining agreement it did not assume.


NLRB v. Burns Int'l Sec. Servs., Inc., 406 U.S. 272 (1972)