NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
Second Division
Number of
coach
cleaners
employed
"There may be one, two, or three shifts employed. The starting time of arty shift shall be arranged by agreement between the local officers and employer' committee based on actual service requirements.
"The time and length of the lunch period shall be subject to agreement, within the limits of the fifth hour, except where three shifts are employed, when the lunch period shall be twenty minutes without loss of time."
POSITION OF CARRIER.-Prior to April 1, 1935, the coach cleaners on this railroad were not covered by any schedule agreement. However, the agreement negotiated with System Federation No. 99', Railway Employer' Department, A. F. of L., becoming effective April 1, 1935, included this class of employer under the jurisdiction of the Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America.
While the assigned working hours and lunch periods for coach cleaners prior to April 1. 1935, were not subject to agreement with any labor organization, it had been our practice for many years to have assigned working hours gild lunch periods such as we have at Memphis for this class of employer in keeping with service requirements, and no protests were ever made on this account by the employer involved. Furthermore, it had been our general practice in the past to allow the twenty-minute lunch period without loss of time only to employes working in contirvncons service on three shi.ftr,. Other employer have lunch periods assigned at a time when the service requir<·nlents best permitted.
It ryas not: the gmpose nor ilatent in negotitling the present schedule agreement i Ith Syst,
v, e in Federation No. 91l to change our established practice. On July 27,It will be noted from the Joint Statement of Facts that the coach cleaners at Memphis are not worked on three continuous shifts, consequently, they are
not allowed twenty minutes for lunch without loss of time, but have their regularly assigned lunch period as service requirements will permit, which we feel is in conformity with the understood purpose and intent of Rule 2 at the time it was negotiated and placed in the schedule agreement.
The lunch periods as are now assigned to these coach cleaners were not made subject to agreement with the employes' local committee, because on July 27, 19435, we were simply changing a local practice that appeared to us to be at variance with the provisions of the schedule agreement, and the employes' committee now in existence was not a party to the error.
We feel that the present working arrangement of these coach cleaners is not in violarion of the agreement; further, that the request for a twenty minute lunch period for these employes without loss of time cannot be justified, and respectfully ask that the request as made be denied.
FINDINGS.-The Second 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 employe 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.
The parties to said dispute were given due notice of hearing thereon.Rule 2 provides that one, two, or three shifts may be employed, and that where three shifts are employed the lunch period shall be twenty (20) minutes witgout loss of time. There were three shifts employed.