Ohio court forces employer back to arbitration after union standoff

None of those things happened. Negotiations stalled. Instead of honoring the existing terms, the juvenile court filed two lawsuits arguing the agreements had either expired outright or were never valid to begin with. 

It went further. The court told union members no agreement existed anymore. When the union emailed a grievance, the court administrator responded that the court was “no longer processing grievances.” 

Local 860 fought back, suing for breach of contract and pushing to force the dispute into arbitration. The employer, the union argued, had walked away without meeting any of the conditions that would have ended the agreements. 

The trial court found the agreements valid but ruled they could not extend beyond December 31, 2020, under Ohio public-sector labor law. It also rejected the union’s emailed grievance. The Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed and sent the case back with orders to compel arbitration. 

The Supreme Court agreed, unanimously. The key question: could the arbitration clause still be enforced when the employer was challenging the whole contract? Yes. An arbitration clause is treated as its own separate agreement, even inside a larger contract. Attacking the bigger deal does not take down the arbitration clause with it.