The District Court found that the employee had failed to exhaust the grievance procedure outlined in collective bargaining agreement prior to filing the lawsuit. However, the Seventh Circuit held that while the grievance the procedure in the collective bargaining agreement covered pay disputes, it did not waive plaintiff's FSLA statutory rights.
Furthermore, although the collective barganing agreement to arbitration provision is enforceable, the agreement must resolve the employee's statutory and contractual rights through the grievance procedure delineated in the agreement. Therefore, the employee was free to file this lawsuit in court regardless of whether he had filed any grievance, since the collective bargaining agreement did not clearly and unmistakenly require him to use grievance procedure set forth to resolve his FSLA claim.