Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ARBITRATION—D.D.C.: Centerra must arbitrate claims of discharged unionized employees who lost security clearances, (Feb 12, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“Like many people in today’s fissured workplaces,” the employees “answered to multiple bosses: they were formally employed by one entity but were contracted out to work an another.”

In a case brought by a union on behalf of two of its members who had been assigned by Centerra Group to work for the Department of Energy and who had their security clearances revoked upon their return from family and medical leave, as well as the union president whose security clearance was revoked when he helped grieve their terminations, a federal court in the District of Columbia granted the union’s motion to arbitrate whether Centerra honored its duty under the CBA to take efforts to reverse any security-clearance revocations as well as whether the employees were terminated for just cause. It denied, however, the union’s motion to compel arbitration of any FMLA/DCFMLA claims, finding it waived its right to arbitrate in this instance (International Guards Union of America Local 150 v. Centerra Group, LLC, No. 25-583 (JEB) (D.D.C. Feb. 10, 2026)).

Revoked clearances. All three employees worked for Centerra, which provides security services to various federal agencies. All three were detailed to the Department of Energy (DOE) where they served as Protective Force Officers. Sometime in 2024, two of the employees took approved leave under the FMLA and the D.C. Family and Medical Leave Act. When they tried to return, they were told their security clearances had been revoked and they were ineligible to continue working at the DOE.

The third employee, the union president, then participated in grieving their disputes. The company denied their grievances and declined the union’s request to arbitrate, arguing that while the CBA contained a broad arbitration clause, the clause excluded security-clearance-related terminations from arbitration. At some point during the proceedings, the union president had his security clearance revoked as well.

Lawsuits. Suing on behalf of the employees, the union sought to arbitrate whether Centerra had failed to perform its Article 4 duty to mitigate clearance revocations by the DOE, whether the employees’ terminations had been for just cause, and each employee’s FMLA/DCFMLA claims. The union subsequently moved for summary judgment and Centerra cross-moved for summary judgment. In the months between initiating the lawsuit and moving for summary judgment, the employees, represented by the union’s counsel, filed a separate lawsuit to litigate their FMLA/DCFMLA claims.

Arbitrability. As a threshold matter, the court turned to the question of arbitrability. While the union argued that the CBA’s incorporation of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services’ Rules evinced the parties’ intention that an arbitrator decide arbitrability, those Rules, the court observed, say nothing about arbitrators deciding arbitrability and because there was no contractual provision stating otherwise, the court explained that it would decide what would be arbitrated.

Article 4 duties. The court turned first to the union’s motion to compel arbitration of whether Centerra honored its Article 4 duties to take efforts to reverse any security-clearance revocations. While Centerra did not dispute the broad coverage of the arbitration clause, it pointed to Article 31, Section 12, the provision that excludes clearance-related terminations from arbitration. Questions around its Article 4 duties, Centerra argued, cannot be resolved “without also litigating the DOE’s decision to revoke clearance and resulting [terminations],” which cannot be arbitrated pursuant to Article 31. Thus, it contended, its Article 4 duties were outside the scope of arbitration.

But Centerra’s Article 4 duties, said the court, can be evaluated separately from the employees’ terminations as an arbitrator can evaluate the company’s conduct without encroaching on issues excluded from arbitration by Article 31. “Those efforts could be satisfactory even if clearance revocation and termination eventually result, and they could likewise be unsatisfactory even if employees are not ultimately fired,” the court explained, granting the union’s motion to compel arbitration on this issue.

Just cause for termination. As to the union’s motion to compel arbitration over whether the employees were terminated for just cause, Centerra again argued that arbitration of their terminations was prohibited by Article 31 because they were all fired for losing their security clearances. According to the union, however, the revocations were used as a pretext to fire the employees for impermissible reasons and thus Article 31’s exclusion of terminations for security clearance reasons did not apply.

Finding itself in “a bit of a bind,” the court explained that in order to decide whether the arbitration-exclusion clause applied to the employees’ terminations, it would need to resolve the underlying factual dispute over why they were fired, which was the issue at the heart of the merits dispute. In other words, said the court, resolving this dispute would require it “to put the cart before the horse, wading into the merits first as to decide the threshold arbitrability question.” Based on this “entangled relationship,” the court found an arbitrator was best suited to resolve the question of just cause.

The question of just cause, the court emphasized, is an issue the contracting parties expect an arbitrator to decide under the terms of the CBA. “In this Court’s view, the fact that the arbitrator’s decision on the merits of the terminations will also implicitly determine arbitrability is an acceptable collateral consequence of honoring the ‘liberal federal policy favoring arbitration,’ and heeding the Supreme Court’s repeated warnings to steer clear of the merits of arbitration disputes.”

Here, the court found it clear that the arbitration clause would cover the terminations if they had not been caused by security-clearance revocation. Though Centerra argued the terminations were caused by the revocations, the union disagreed, arguing that framing was pretextual. Declining to delve into the merits, the court left the factual dispute over the terminations to be resolved by an arbitrator.

FMLA/DCFMLA claims. Turning finally to the union’s attempt to compel arbitration of the employees’ FMLA/DCFMLA claims, the court found that while the broad arbitration clause reached these disputes, the union waived its right to arbitrate here. The employees, represented by the union’s counsel and in privity with the union as its members, filed a lawsuit against Centerra to litigate these claims.

Nor were the claims distinct, the court observed, as the union was seeking to both arbitrate and litigate the employees’ statutory rights. The court found it clear the union was seeking to arbitrate the statutory claims rather than the separate contractual rights because it specifically stated that the grievances to be arbitrated were the “alleged violations of the FMLA and the DCFMLA.” Further, the court observed, the statutes are the only source of family-and-medical-leave rights here as the CBA includes no substantive guarantees of leave. Indeed, it provides only that “Family and Medical Leave... will be granted in accordance with applicable law.” Moreover, because the arbitration clause contemplates arbitration of statutory claims, arbitration of FMLA claims would not be unexpected.

Thus, the court found that waiver applied here because the lawsuit and arbitration concern the same claims and suing over those claims is inconsistent with a desire to arbitrate them.

The case is No. 25-583 (JEB).

Judge: Boasberg, J.

Attorneys: Scott V. Kamins (Offit Kurman) for International Guards Union of American Local 150. Adam Thomas Simons (McGuireWoods) for Centerra Group, LLC.

Companies: Centerra Group, LLC; International Guards Union of America Local 150

Cases: Arbitration Labor Discharge GovernmentContracts EmployeeLeave Procedure DistrictofColumbiaNews