A protest scribbled on a suspension letter kicked off a three-year fight
An employee signed his disciplinary letter “under protest” - and his unions spent three years trying to force the issue into arbitration.
The Iowa Court of Appeals shut that down on October 21, 2026.
It started in July 2023, when the Des Moines Independent Community School District investigated an allegation that a full-time employee was under the influence of alcohol while working. By September, the district had suspended him for thirty days without pay and set conditions for continued employment.
The employee signed the letter to acknowledge receipt - but wrote next to the acknowledgment that he “signed under protest/subject to grievance.”
His unions filed a grievance, arguing the suspension violated their collective bargaining agreement, in effect since July 2019. The parties worked through the first three steps of the CBA’s four-step grievance procedure without resolution. When the unions moved to the final step - binding arbitration - the school district refused.
Its position was blunt: the CBA does not cover discipline.
The unions went to court in April 2024 to compel arbitration. The district court sided with the school district, finding the CBA unambiguously excludes discipline from the grievance process. No just-cause clause - meaning the contract set no standard the district had to meet before disciplining someone. No article addressing discipline at all.
Iowa law gave the district solid ground. State legislation reserves to public employers the exclusive power to suspend or discharge employees for proper cause. Unless an employer specifically agrees to hand that authority over through bargaining, it stays with management.
On appeal, the unions tried seven arguments. All failed. They argued the CBA’s exclusion of probationary employees from the grievance process implied non-probationary employees could grieve discipline. The court was unconvinced: the CBA bars arbitrators from adding to its terms and requires that decisions rest solely on “the meaning or application of the express relevant language of the agreement.” You cannot read rights into silence.
The unions also pushed the principle that doubts about arbitration should favor the worker. The court called it a tie-breaker, not a trump card - applicable only when contract language is genuinely unclear.
One last detail: the district holds CBAs with four labor organizations. Only one contains language allowing grievances related to discipline - and even that is limited.
For HR teams drafting or administering collective bargaining agreements, the lesson is plain: if a CBA says nothing about discipline, a public employer’s right to discipline without arbitration is likely to hold. What the contract leaves out can matter as much as what it puts in.
The ruling is final.
