bears the burden of proof of such alleged violations or misapplication of the contract language. See

PLB 3106, Award 177 (Referee Criswell); PLB 6607, Award 1 (Referee Lieberman); PLB 4901,

Award =8 (Referee Wallin); PLB 4976. Award No. 23 (Referee Harris) and PI-3 6180, Award 136

(Referee Twomey).

The Agreement provisions which 2ovem this case are found in contracts between the United

Transportation Union and the C=..-.r, i;=. Article V of the 1972 UTU National Aueement, Article

XIII of the 198= UTL: National Agrees: ent and the U-P,'UTU Memorandum of Agreement dated

December 17, 1996 (211=019629); enti7led "Ensineer Selection Process". For that reason, this

Board provided Third Party notice to the' nked Transportation Union, following which the TUTU

participated fully in the instant proceedings. At the conclusion of the hearing on March 21, 2001

was rendered in a letter dated March ?_. -001, reading in pertinent part as follows:

three (3) month period to quali^y as an Engineer, such 3-month period to begin running upon his

slot in he seniority roster, in accordance ~nr `ta controlling Agreements.

training at the Carrier's Locomotive =ngiir eer Training School in Salt Lake City but he was unable

to qualify in actual over-the-road train=. The record shows that Claimant chose not to avail

himself of UTU assistance/representat:c:: and apparently elected instead to be represented by the

BL E as he proceeded through the traini::= process. Perhaps for that reason, Carrier completely failed

or neglected to comply with its contr_c^cal obligation to communicate with the appropriate

representatives of the UTU concerning C:ai-tart's enrollment in and difficulties with satisfactory

AWARD N0. 120 NMB CASE NO. 120 UNION CASE 99030 COMPANY CASE 183634 completion of over-the-road portion of the engineer training program. Had Carrier provided these appropriate communications to the = General Chairman, the outcome in this case would be no different than that in a similar case on this property was brought before Public Law Board 5912 with Neutral Frank T Lynch. Therein, when problems arose with an employee's training, the Carrier representative (the instructor) contacted the UTU-E Local Chairman, who contacted the LiTU-E General Chairman, who con esponded with the highest designated ofncer of the Caries authorized to handle such issues. Together, the Parties weed that the training period of the involved employee in that case would be extended and handled between the Carrier's -Manager of Operating Practices and the UTU Local Chairman, with all correspondence between the parties was forwarded to the General Chairman and Labor Relations for monitoring. In those circumstances, PL13 5912 held in Award 169 that Carrier had abided by the Agreement requirements in judging the employee as having failed to satisfactorily complete the training course and termination was the appropriate result under the "self-executing" provisions of controlling Agreements.

In the present case, however, without reaching the merits of Carrier's conclusions that Claimant did not satisfactorily demonstrate competence and ability in the over-the-road phase ofhis training, the undisputed failure of Carrier to comply with its contractual obligations to notify the appropriate UTU officials of Claimant's entry into and progress/problems make application of the "self-executing" termination provisions inappropriate in this particular case. Based upon all of the foregoing, this Board concluded that Carrier must allow Claimant an additional opportunity to qualify as an Engineer under terms and conditions set forth in the bench decision, supra.