Hospital and Institutional Workers Local 250 v. Pasatiempo Development Corp.

Hospital and Institutional Workers Local 250 (the Union) appeals the denial of its petition to compel arbitration pursuant to § 301 of the Labor Management Reporting Act. The Union sought arbitration to resolve a dispute over Pasatiempo’s discharge of one of its employees from a convalescent hospital. When the discharge occurred, Pasatiempo had just purchased the facility from an owner whose collective bargaining agreement with the Union had expired. Although Pasatiempo and the Union negotiated a new contract, its effective date was after the discharge.

As the Union concedes, NLRB v. Burns International Security Service, 406 U.S. 272 , 92 S.Ct. 1571 , 32 L.Ed.2d 61 (1972), and Howard Johnson Co. v. Detroit Local Joint Executive Board, 417 U.S. 249 , 94 S.Ct. 2236 , 41 L.Ed.2d 46 (1974), establish that a successor employer is not bound by the substantive terms of a collective bargaining agreement unless it expressly or impliedly assumes them. Because the contract had expired when Pasatiempo discharged the employee, we have no occasion to consider the applicability of cases in this circuit that may have suggested that a contractual duty to arbitrate under an existing contract might…