## Facts

- The City and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association (UFOA) were parties to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) covering certain uniformed fire officers.
- The CBA included an “investigatory procedures” article granting procedural protections during investigations the City commenced (including notice and representation rights) and providing for grievance arbitration over compliance.
- The City’s Department of Investigation (DOI), a statutorily authorized agency with broad power to investigate City employee misconduct and criminal activity, issued subpoenas to firefighters during a criminal investigation.
- UFOA asserted DOI was required to follow the CBA’s investigatory procedures when questioning union members and filed a grievance alleging the City breached the CBA by not ensuring DOI’s compliance.
- The City contested arbitrability before the New York City Board of Collective Bargaining (BCB), arguing it had not agreed to arbitrate DOI criminal-investigation procedures and that public policy forbade such arbitration.
- The BCB held the grievance arbitrable; the City then sought judicial relief to annul that determination and to enjoin arbitration.
- While arbitrability was litigated, DOI proceeded with and completed the criminal investigation.

## Issues

1. Whether the CBA contained a clear agreement to arbitrate a grievance seeking to enforce contractual investigatory procedures against DOI’s questioning methods in a criminal investigation.
2. Whether, even if the CBA could be read to cover the grievance, public policy barred arbitration because it would intrude upon DOI’s statutory authority to conduct independent criminal investigations.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgments annulling the BCB’s arbitrability determination and enjoining arbitration.
- The Court held the City did not clearly and unmistakably agree in the CBA to arbitrate disputes that would regulate DOI’s conduct of criminal investigations.
- The Court also held that compelling arbitration would violate strong public policy protecting DOI’s legislatively conferred investigative independence and the public interest in effective criminal investigations.

## Legal Principles

- Public-sector arbitrability analysis considers (1) whether the subject is legally bargainable and (2) whether the parties agreed to arbitrate the particular dispute.
- A CBA will not be construed to submit core governmental functions—especially criminal investigative methods of an independent agency—to arbitration absent clear and unmistakable contractual language.
- Arbitration may be barred where the claim or potential award would intrude upon, impair, delay, or constrain a governmental agency’s statutory mandate, even when the dispute is framed as contractual.
- Contractual investigatory procedures suitable for internal administrative or disciplinary inquiries cannot be used to subject an independent criminal investigative agency’s tactics and subpoena-based questioning to arbitral review.

## Conclusion

The court refused to compel arbitration of a union grievance that, in substance, would subject DOI’s criminal investigative questioning to CBA-based procedures, holding both that the CBA lacked a clear agreement to arbitrate such disputes and that public policy protects DOI’s statutory independence from contractual or arbitral control.


City of New York v. Uniformed Fire Officers Ass'n, Loc. 854, IAFF, AFL-CIO, 95 N.Y.2d 273 (N.Y. 2000)