STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of Joint Council Dining Car Employes Local 516 on the property of Great Northern Railway Company, for and on behalf of Chef Cook Glenn Gaasvig, that he be compensated account ten days' suspension effective November 22nd to December 1, 1956 inclusive, amounting to 66 hours and 30 minutes at claimant's current rate of pay account said suspension being in violation of agreement and arbitrarily and capriciously imposed upon claimant and that entry on claimant's personnel record account said discipline be expunged.
OPINION OF BOARD: The Claimant in this case was a chef on one of the trains of the Carrier. As a result of an investigation he was suspended from service for 10 days in that he allegedly filled an oral order and allowed food to leave the kitchen without having the cook's portion of meal check.
The record discloses that the waiter, the steward and the chef were parties to the formal investigation and the Carrier imposed the same penalty against all three parties.
The facts show that two operatives for the E. M. Burch Company were traveling this particular train and on the morning of November 10, 1956 one of the operatives gave to the pullman porter a breakfast order written on a telegram blank and asked that it be delivered to their room. This order read:
The record also shows that there is ample evidence, if believed, to sustain Carrier's position that the waiter served the operatives breakfast without ever showing them a guest check.
The question remains, however, as to whether the records sustains the position of the Carrier as to the chef serving food on the basis of an oral order.
The Carrier has placed great emphasis that their aduit shows no check for the food in question which contains a notation of the surcharge for
delivery outside the dining room. The record however is completely barren of any evidence that the chef has any knowledge or responsibility concerning where food ordered is to be served.
The record also discloses that only the cooked food portion of the order of the operatives comes under the jurisdiction and responsibility of the chef and there is nothing in the record to show that he has any knowledge of what other items may be picked up from the pantry.
Finally at the investigation the following questions were posed and answered.
This being so, the ticket numbers listed above could well be the particular order in question. It is the judgment of this Division that there is an unexplained hiatus in the chain of events as set forth in the record. Without those missing links this record does not sustain the charge.
FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, after giving the parties to this dispute due notice of hearing thereon, and upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:
That the Carrier and the Employes involved in this dispute are respectively Carrier and Employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act, as approved June 21, 1934;
That this Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; and