NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
THIRD DIVISION
(Supplemental)
Bill Heskett, Referee
PARTIES TO DISPUTE:
BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD SIGNALMEN
READING COMPANY
STATEMENT OF CLAIM:
Claim of the General Committee of the
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the Reading Company that:
(a) Carrier violated Rule 48 of the Signalmen's Agreement
when it suspended Signal Maintainer F. H. Schmeiss for five working days commencing May 4, 1966, without placing a precise charge
against him prior to the investigation.
(b) Carrier be required to compensate Mr. Schmeiss for five
(5) days ($120.71) and to remove any and all remarks that may
have been entered on his employment records. (Carrier's File: 5201)
OPINION OF BOARD:
Rule 48(a) of the Agreement specifically
requires that the employe ". . be apprised in writing of the precise charge
against him." The sole question before us is whether or not the notice given
Claimant, as a practical matter rather than a technical matter, was sufficiently precise to apprise him of the charge against him.
The pertinent part of the notice reads as follows:
"In accordance with Article 6, Rule 48, of the Agreement between Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen and Reading Company,
you are hereby notified to present yourself for hearing and investigation in connection with alleged violations of Reading Company
Instructions Governing Signal Department, revised February, 1952,
concerning Signal No. 155, west of Raritan River Bridge, New York
Branch on April 6, 1966, to determine your responsibility, if any, in
this matter.
For something to be "precise", it must be exactly or sharply defined or
stated. It cannot be vague or equivocal.
The Agreement does not place the burden of requesting a clarification
of the charge upon the Organization. Instead, it requires that Carrier make
its charge precisely.
Here, the notice or charge was not "precise"-it merely referred to an
"alleged violation" of a book of Carrier's instructions which the record discloses has a total of 134 different rules. Further, the notice made no mention of what there was about Signal No. 155 on April 6, 1966, that caused
it to make a charge against Claimant. Obviously, the notice was too vague
to meet the requirements of Rule 48(a).
FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the
whole record and alt 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 violated by the Carrier.
NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
By Order of THIRD DIVISION
ATTEST: S. H. Schulty
Executive Secretary
Dated at Chicago, Illinois,
this 24th day of May 1968.
Keenan Printing Co., Chicago, 111. Printed in U.S.A.
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