The record shows that on each of these occasions, Engineer Smith was confronted by his supervisors and each time he told them that he was late due to problems arranging child care for his son. Engineer Smith is a single parent and according to his undisputed testimony the reason he was late for work on each of the dates mentioned supra, was because he had to make last-minute arrangements for someone to care for his child after the prearranged child care provider failed to appear. When he was late the first time, on June 11, MTO Marzano counseled Claimant that even though being a working single parent was difficult, he was expected to take care of his job and be at work on time. On the next day, June 12, Claimant was 52 minutes late and brought his son to work with him because, after he accepted the call, he found out that his day care provider was no longer in business. On that occasion, MTO Murray allowed Claimant to leave the child in the yard office until someone could come and pick him up.
Two days later, when Claimant was again late reporting for duty, he was cited for allegedly violating Rule 1. 13: "Employees will report to and comply with instructions from supervisors who have t17e properjurisdiction. Employees will comply with instructions issued by managers afvarious departments when the instructions apply to their duties". Following a formal investigation, Carrier found Claimant guilty as charged and assessed a "stand-alone" Level 2 UPGRADE discipline.
In reviewing the entire record, this Board concludes that Carrier did not compromise or hinder Claimant's rights under the BLE System Discipline Rule and did demonstrate that he failed to comply with reasonable supervisory instructions concerning reporting on time for duty. The plight of a working single parent with lack of reliable child care somewhat mitigates his culpability, as his immediate supervisors apparently recognized in granting him some forbearance on the first -2-
two occasions. After the third occurrence in the same week, however, it was not unreasonable for Carrier to apply a measured dose of discipline to reinforce the message that employees must "take care of the job and get to work on time". In light of all of the circumstances, including the undisputed fact that prior to the events this Engineer was discipline-free for four (4) years, the Level 2 discipline is modified to a Level 1 on Claimant's record but his request for "pay for all time lost"