NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
Charles W. Webster, Referee
PARTIES TO DISPUTE:
AMERICAN TRAIN DISPATCHERS ASSOCIATION
THE NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD
RAILROAD COMPANY
STATEMENT OF CLAIM:
Claim of the American Train Dispatchers
Association that:
(a) The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company
(hereinafter referred to as "the Carrier") violated the existing schedule agreement between the parties, specifically Article 6 thereof, by
its arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory action not supported by
evidence of record in withholding Train Dispatcher J. J. Smith, Sr.,
from Carrier's service for a period of thirty (30) days upon a charge
of allegedly violating Carrier's Operating Rule 762.
(b) The Carrier shall now be required to compensate Claimant
Smith for the said thirty (30) days and clear his record of the unsupported charge.
OPINION OF BOARD:
The Claimant in this case was given a 30 day
suspension for his part in a train wreck. The Claimant was specifically
charged with a violation of Rule 762. This rule provides:
"They should bear in mind that many matters clear to them
may not be fully understood by operators, conductors, enginemen
and others, and give instructions in such a manner that they will not
be misunderstood. Being perhaps more familiar with existing conditions than some others, it is the dispatchers' duty to take the initiative
so far as lies within their power; see that trains are moved safely,
anticipating dangerous conditions, and avoid issuing messages or unsafe combinations of train orders that might cause an accident, due
to confusion or misunderstanding."
A reading of the record as a whole shows that several of the Carrier's
employes were culpably negligent and that any one of several of them could
have avoided this accident if they had been attentive. The record also shows
that the individual Claimant must assume his share of responsibility in that
he "assumed" matters which as a matter of common diligence he had no
right to under Rule 762. The Carrier was therefore not arbitrary and capri
cious in disciplining him.
[339]
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FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole
record and all the evidence, finds and holds:
That the parties waived oral hearing;
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
That the Agreement was not violated.
AWARD
Claim denied.
NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
By Order of THIRD DIVISION
ATTEST: S. H. Schulty
Executive Secretary
Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 28th day of June, 1963.