Form 1 NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD Award No. 28805
 THIRD DIVISION Docket No. MW-27646
 91-3-87-3-98
 The Third Division consisted of the regular members and in
 addition Referee Lamont E. Stallworth when award was rendered.

PARTIES TO DISPUTE:


STATEMENT OF CLAIM: "Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood that:

 (1) The Carrier violated the Agreement when it refused to permit Laborer - Driver R. H. Cormier to work on January 27, 1986 (System File MW-86-34/447-32-A).

 (2) Division Engineer J. W. Blasingame failed to disallow the claim, presented to him under date of February 11, 1986, as contractually stipulated within Section 1(a) of Article 15.

 (3) As a consequence of either or both (1) and/or (2) above, Laborer-Driver R. H. Cormier shall be allowed '8 hours pay' at his straight time rate."

 FINDINGS:
The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds that:

 The carrier or carriers and the employe or employes involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act as approved June 21, 1934.

 This Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein.

At the time of this claim, in January 1986, Claimant was regularly assigned as a Laborer-Driver at Beaumont, Texas. On Monday, January 27, 1986, Claimant reported for work without his required hard hat and safety glasses. Claimant explained to the Carrier's District Manager that, prior to going on vacation from January 20 through January 24, 1986, he had placed his hard hat and glasses in the Carrier's truck which he was assigned to operate. When Claimant reported for duty on January 27, he discovered that on the previous Friday, January 24, the truck had been transferred to a gang at Kountze, Texas, some 25 miles away. The District Manager explained to Claimant that Claimant could not work without his hard hat and safety glasses. Because there were no spare hats and glasses available to lend him, Claimant was sent home for the day without pay.
 Form 1 Award No. 28805
 Page 2 Docket No. MW-27646
 91-3-87-3-98

 This claim demands that Claimant be awarded the day's pay he lost on that occasion. The Organization makes two arguments in support of the claim. First, the Organization argues that it is a longstanding custom among employees of the Carrier's Mai to keep their safety equipment, such as hard hats and glasses, in the vehicles assigned by the Carrier to their gangs. According to the Organization, the Carrier was aware of this practice and consequently was obliged to ensure that Claimant's equipment was not relocated without his knowledge, rendering him unable to work a scheduled shift. Alternatively, the organization argues that the claim should be paid as presented because, regardless of its merits, the Carrier erred in allowing the claim to be denied at the initial level by a Carrier Official other than the Official with whom the claim had been filed. The Board will consider these contentions in reverse order.

 For its procedural argument, the Organization relies on Article 15, Section 1 of the Agreement. That provision states:

As the Carrier points out, this provision does not state nor does it necessarily imply that only upon it. Perhaps because the Agreement does not specifically address this matter, the Board has ruled in conflicting ways. However, the most recent decision brought to our attention is Third Division Award 27590, which rejects the Organization's position. In that case the Board exhaustively considered prior Awards and concluded that those which have adopted the Organization's position are poorly-reasoned or explained by other circumstances. The Board observed:
Form 1 Award No. 28805
 Page 3 Docket No. MW-27646
 91-3-87-3-98

 There is Second Division precedent for the same view. See, for example, Second Division Award 10066, wherein the Board said:

As to the merits of the claim, the Board concludes that Claimant has failed to demonstrate a violation by the Carrier when it sent him home. It is not disputed that Claimant did not have with him his mandatory safety equipment. Even if the Carrier relieve the employees of their responsibility to have the equipment with them when beginning their daily work.

 The equipment was issued to each employee and there is no question that each employee was expected to be responsible for it. Ample precedent reflects that any employee without his safety equipment may be held out of work without pay, and sent home, until he recovers it and is prepared to go to work. See, e.g., Third Division Awards 25814, 24392. Claimant cannot escape his responsibility merely by asserting that the Carrier was aware that employees often left their equipment in the trucks. When an employee such as Claimant elects to place his equipment in a Carrier vehicle rather than keeping it in his possession equipment might otherwise become lost or inaccessible to him.

 The Organization has suggested that the Carrier was required to follow disciplinary procedures before holding Claimant out of service on the claim date. Not so. This cannot fairly be characterized as a disciplinary suspension. Claimant simply was precluded from working because he did not have the required equipment with him. In other words, he was not prepared to work, and his unpreparedness was not the fault of the Carrier or the result of a choice by the Carrier. When Claimant fails to report prepared to work, the Carrier is not obliged to either pay him or invoke disciplinary procedures. It may simply hold him out, as it did in this case.




                          By Order of Third Division


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Attest:
      Nancy J. ~t - Executive Secretary


Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 15th day of May 1991.