Form 1 NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTNE17T BOARD Award No. 0'910
 SECOND DIVISION Docket No. 6811
 2-CMStP&P-MBA-' 75



Parties to Dispute:
 ( Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific
 ( Railroad Company'

 Dispute: Claim of Employes:



Findings:
The Second Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds that:

 . The carrier or carriers and the employe or employes involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employe within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act as approved June 21, 1934.

 This Division of the Adjustment Board. has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein.

 Parties to said dispute waived right of appearance at hearing thereon.

 The present claim challenges the propriety of a seven day suspension administered to a machinist helper for refusing to obey a direct order of his immediate supervisor to operate the boom crane at Roundhouse No. 2 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 The record establishes that Claimant did refuse to carry out a clear order given to him by Foreman Urbanski to operate the boom crane to help the B and B 'Gang erect a wooden beam in Roundhouse No. 2. The work was required in order to reinforce the roof before the construction company came to remove a section of the roof structure. When asked by the Foreman to do the work, Claimant replied that he would not because the building
 Form 1 Award. No. 6910
 Page 2 Docket No. 6811

was under construction and unsafe and after the Foreman walked away and Claimant's committeeman approached Claimant, the latter explained that "the area was under construction and there were no lights and you couldn't see the controls on the boom crane and I wasn't familiar with operating the boom crane every day and I thought that I did not want to hurt anybody in the immediate area because I couldn't see which controls and the end of the crane."

 Particularly on railroads where operations are so frequently farflung, it is important to uphold and enforce strictly unambiguous orders by competent authority to employes. As we have consistently ruled, if an employe considers an order improper or unreasonable, his proper course is nevertheless to comply with the order immediately and, if he desires, to contest it later through the orderly processes of the grievar_c,e machinery. The realistic wisdom of this principle is quite apparent and, as noted above, it will be strictly enforced.

 An exception to this rule exists when compliance with an order may reasonably subject the employe to physical danger. We are not satisfied from this record that Claimant's expressed concern as to safety was groundless, contrived or merely an afterthought. N?o other employe carried out the order until floodlights had been brought in by Carrier to light up the area. There is no indication that Claimant was merely using the condition to avoid. work or defy management.

 The record supports Claimant's expressed concern and we do not find that under the circumstances of this case his failure to detail all the grounds for his concern.in his brief conversation with the Foreman defeat; the claim. There appears to have been a reasonable basis for Claimant's fear, as a machinist helper who did not have daily experience with the crane, that its operation under the conditions existing at the time he was given the order involved immediate peril to himself and possibly other employes.

 A W A R D

 Claim sustained.

 Attest: Executive Secretary
 National Railroad Adjustment Board

 By k--11

Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 15th day of August, 1975.

 NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
 By Order of Second Division