`Dispute - Claim of Employee:

That the Union Pacific Railroad Company (hereinafter referred to as Carrier) violated Rule 32 of the Controlling Agreement between the International Association of Machinists, and the Missouri Pacific Railroad dated June 1, 1960, as subsequently revised and amended, when it harshly and unjustly placed a letter of discipline in the personal record file of Machinist Matthew Arnold (hereinafter referred to as claimant) on June 24, 2006, account his alleged violation of Carrier Rules which was done so without first holding a formal investigation to determine the facts.

Relief Requested:

That the Union Pacific Railroad be ordered to remove the discipline from the Claimant's personal record and clear his service record of all references to the alleged incident."

The carrier or carriers and the employee or employees involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employee 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 were given due notice of hearing thereon.

The Claimant signed a manager's conference letter June 24, 2006. That letter referred to an incident that had occurred on March 21st, was discussed in conference on April 8th, and was entered as a replacement of an earlier letter in the Claimant's employment file.

Whatever dispute the earlier letter may have generated, the Organization protested August 18, 2006 that the Manager's conference letter was discipline; that it was "harassing in nature" and must be removed from the Claimant's employment records. The Carrier disagreed on all points and considered the letter appropriate and denied that it constituted discipline.

The Board has studied the various points raised by the parties to this dispute. We have paid careful attention to the Organization's arguments that the letter fails to comply with established and acceptable standards of counseling, rather than discipline. In pertinent part, the letter in dispute states:

"This letter will confirm our Manager's conference of April 8, 2006, which was held to discuss an alleged incident by you and another machinist on 3/21/2006. In this regard you have been advised you must ensure that you comply with all of the Union Pacific Railroad Rules, Polices, and Procedures in particular, but not limited to Rule 1.13, Reporting and Complying with Instructions, and 1.6 Conduct - 6 Quarrelsome and 7 Discourteous.

In this conference we discussed your alleged attempted intimidation of a fellow machinist when you allegedly made the comment "don't

In this instant dispute, what the Claimant signed, supra, was firstly a statement that he had discussed all of the inclusive elements. Secondly, there was no evidence of record that this letter was part of any step in the Carrier's progressive

NRAB-00002-070017 (07-2-17)