(Brotherhood of Railway, Airline and ( Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, ( Express and Station Employes PARTIES TO DISPUTE: (Southern Pacific Transportation Company ( (Pacific Lines)

(a) The Southern Pacific Transportation Company violated the current Clerks' Agreement when it dismissed employe J. W. Hardison from service following investigation at which the charge was not proved; and,'

 (b) The Southern Pacific Transportation Company shall now be required to allow Mr. Hardison full back pay beginning January 25, 1978, and continuing each day thereafter until reinstated to service with all Agreement rights unimpaired, including seniority and health and welfare benefits..

 OPINION OF BOARD: This docket involves the same parties and a
 similar factual situation as involved in Award
 No. 22693.

 Claimant, who had been in service as a clerk since February 24, 1970, was dismissed from service on January 25, 1978, for alleged violation of the second paragraph of Carrier's Rule 810 reading:

The Board has carefully reviewed the transcript of the investigation conducted prior to claimant of the parties. The record shows that claimant frequently called his employer and reported that he would not be able to work because of sickness or for some other reason, and in each instance permission to be off was granted. The Carrier refers to some of the absences as


being "excused" and others as "not excused.

 Ased upon the entire record, the Board is of the considered opinion that Carrier's action in dis accumulated absences each of which was handled in the usual manner and authorized by supervisory personnel, was arbitrary and unreasonable. If the Carrier were in doubt as to claimant's illness in anfinstance, it could have required him to furnish a doctor's statement, or could have had him examined by Carrier's designated Company physician to evaluate his physical condition to continue in service. To attempt to classify an absence because of illness as an "unexcused absence," as some of the Carrier's officials seem to do, is untenable. Our attention has been called to the fact that absence because o illness is excluded from the Leave of Absence Rule (lLe 39) of the Agreement

 Based upon the record before it, the Board cannot uphold Carrier's dismissal of claimant. Neither does the Board feel justified, in view of claimant's absentee record, in awarding him full back pay for each day following his dismissal, as claimed. We will award that claimant be restored to service with his former seniority, and compensated for each day lost, except for the first six months following his dismissal, or from July 25, 1978, his earnings from that date to be computed in accordance with Rule 52 of the applicable agreement:

 The Organization has offered no Agreement support for that portion of claim including "health and welfare benefits," and it is denied.



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 t
 over the dispute involved herein; and
 x
                    Docket Number CL-22728

        That the Agreement was violated.

        A W A R D


        Claim sustained to the extent indicated in Opinion.


                        NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD

                        By Order of Third Division


ATTEST: Z~ /V
        Executive Secretary


Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 11th day of January 1980.