Hi Dennis,

Don't know if this will work in V8, but have a look at https://our.umbraco.com/Documentation/Reference/Events/EditorModel-Events/

Maybe you can remove publish from the allowed actions of the ContentItemDisplay model : https://our.umbraco.com/Documentation/Reference/Events/EditorModel-Events/#contentitemdisplay

In V7 I was able to remove the unpublish button for everybody that was not in admin with the following bit of code

private void EditorModelEventManager_SendingContentModel(HttpActionExecutedContext sender, EditorModelEventArgs<ContentItemDisplay> e)
    {
        var contentItemDisplay = e.Model;
        var context = e.UmbracoContext;

        this.HideActionButtons(contentItemDisplay, context);
    }

    private void HideActionButtons(ContentItemDisplay contentItemDisplay, UmbracoContext context)
    {
        var usergroups = context.Security.CurrentUser.Groups.ToList();

            if (contentItemDisplay.ContentTypeAlias == "MyAalias")
        {
            if (usergroups.Exists(x => x.Alias == "admin") == false)
            {
                // remove unpublish actions, because if editor removes this it will break the site
                contentItemDisplay.AllowedActions = contentItemDisplay.AllowedActions.ToList().Where(x => x != "Z");
            }

        }
    }

Dave