( Station Employes PARTIES TO DISPUTE:




i) Carrier Kolated the Clerks' Rules Agreement when it failed to afford employe L. Kas a fair and impartial investigation and assessed a 00-day suspension arbitrarily and without ,just cause.

 2) Carrier shall be required to clear the record of employe L. Kas and compensate her for all time lost.

 3) Carrier shall ~ be required to gay en the total amount claimed in Item 2 above, 77as interest commencing December 18, 1971 and compounded annually until the claim is paid in full.

 OPINION CF BOARD: Claimant, a comptometer operator, was charged with
 being tardy for work on ilovember 24, 1971 and for
 being absent on November 29, 1971. Following an investigation, held
 on December 7, 19'71 she was found guilty by Carrier and assessed a
 sixty-day suspension.

 P=etitioner asserts that Claimant was not afforded a fair and impartial investigation and further that the evidence presented at the investigation did not warrant the disci;line which is characterized as being arbitrary and without Gust cause. These contentions are denied by Carrier.

 Carrier's hearing officer W this dispute subjected himself to scrutiny and complaint for barring certain questions put to witnesses in cross examination by Claimant's representative and also for allegedly refusing to answer certain questions tut to him. Our review of the transcript of the hearing reveals that the hearing officer's conduct was fir from exemplary; _.e did bar certain questions as not being relevant to the investigation^w= h great aaa:.ance, when these questions appeared to be at worst tangentially relevant and not who_"y inawprcpriate. However, we do not conclude that this conduct sig;nificanily 7rejudiced Claimant's rights to a fair trial under all the circumstances. Two recent Awa-^ds _n*:ol -ng the same


parties, ,?wards 2COI-4 and 20148, were cited by the Organization in support of this argument. A study of those .swards however, reveals obvious flagrant misconduct on the part of the hearing officer, which is apparently substantially different from the conduct of the :hearing officer in this dispute. rurther, Petitioner argues that the investigating officer erred when he personally refused to ans·.rer questions 7ertainiag to the charges. :·Ie .note that the atte=pts to question the hearing officer were generated by an argument -ertaining to his rulings on relevance of testimony and appeared to be unrelated to the substance of the hearing; further there was no indication at that time or at any t_^...e in the hearing or thereafter as to -shy the hearing officer was needed as a witness. .Accordingly, conforming to our reasoning expressed in award 19916 involving the same parties, we must reject the argument pertaining to the refusal to answer questions.

 Petitioner's argument on the merits of this dispute suggest that the offense cc=aitted by Claimant, "standing alone" does not a tif7 . si. ~y-ay suspension. There is no dispute that Claimant, who regularly re^or-ed for work at 5:25 A.M. telephoned her superior at ':15 A.:d. on ^ove=ber 24th stating that she had overslept and ca.m_ to wor_w at 10:1C A.:t. There also is no dispute that Claimant .gas absent cn No,.-ember 2z, 171 although there are conflicting reasons for the absence in the record. cor this reas:n it is clear that there was sufficient e·ridence to support the finding of guilt by Carrier. Came the guilt of Clai^aant is established it is coroner for Carrier to evaluate the work record of the employe in assessing a -enalty; in fact =nions frequently laud the ccrcept of progressive discipline as both appropriate and equ4table in deterring rule infractions. In `.his case Claimant's record indicated a long history of warni:<s for repeated tardiness and absenteeism culminating in a thirty-day suspension on June 2=, 1970. Under these circumstances Carrier's imposition of discipline in the instant case seems quite reasonable. There is no basis in the record :herein to cause us to intervene and upset -_=a Carrier's proper exercise of discretion.

        F="7GS: The Third Di-rision of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:


        That the parties waived oral hearing;


?'hat the Carrier and the Empicyes involved in this dis^ute are respectively Carrier and Employes within the caning of the Railway labor Act, as aDL^Lroved June 21, 1934;
                  Award Number 20227 Page 3

                  Docket Number CI,-20151


That this Divisicn of the Adjustment Hoard has ,Jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; and

        That the Agreement was not violated.


                  A W A R D


        Claim denied.


                        NATIONAL, RAILROAD ADJUSTS BOARD

                        By Order of Third Division


ATTEST:- ~~
 ~.zecut;ve Secretary

 Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 30th day of April 1974.