DISPUTE: CLAIM OF EMPLOYES: Should the work of maintaining and repairing the gas engine of motor cars be given to the machinist craft?
POSITION OF EMPLOYES: Rule 60 of our agreement with the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad reads in part as follows: "Machinists' work shall consist of adjusting, shaping, boring, slotting, milling, and grinding of metals used in building, assembling, maintaining, dismantling, and installing locomotives and engines (operated by steam or other power)."
The C. I. & L. Railway Company has replaced the old hand car with the motor car. They also have gas-driven tie tampers and rail-loaders, and almost all machinery used in repairing the track is propelled by steam, air, or gas, along with pile drivers, bridge derricks, ditchers, wrecking derricks, yard cranes, and numerous other machines they use in maintaining their property, all of which the machinists on this road have always maintained and repaired, except the motors on their motor cars, which they have handled as a grievance from time to time without complete results.
The machinists also repair and maintain the ice cutting machines which are gas driven and used in the cutting and storing of ice for summer use. Some of the work on the motor cars which requires machining has been sent to the shop for the machinists to do; and also, prior to 1931, or the time the depression hit this road, the machinists at Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana, did the repair work on the motor cars working out of those points.
On June 5, 1931, the company made a drastic reduction in their machinist force and only retained a small running repair force and a small dead work force in their several roundhouses and shut the main repair shop to repair all motor cars.
Then is when the company erected a shed or building about a mile from the main shop in Lafayette, Indiana, and put signal employe in this shop to repair all motor cars.
The machinists have protested this action from time to time over a period of years with no success.
The gas motor on these cars is purely machinists' work, and it is covered in Rule 60, Machinists' Special Rules, of our agreement.
The machinery for grinding valves, fitting rings, grinding cylinders, and turning parts for repairs is all located at the general repair shop.
At the main shop in Lafayette, Indiana, they have several tractors and Ford trucks which they use to transfer material from the store department and yards to the different departments. All of these the machinists repair and maintain.
Therefore, the company has recognized the fact that this class of work belongs to the machinists' craft.
It is surely evident to every one that a signal man who has nothing to do with any machinery except which is electrically equipped is in no position to be a gas engine mechanic. This work in no way compares with signal mechanics' work.
Our Rule 60 gives this work of repairing locomotives and engines (propelled by steam or any other power) to the machinists, and this work should be allocated to the craft where it rightfully belongs.
POSITION OF CARRIER: The only motor cars operated by this carrier are a very few small inspection cars used by car repairers, signal men, and section motor cars and small track laying machines operated by maintenance of way forces. Repairs to these cars ever since they were introduced on this railroad, 26 years ago, have been made by maintenance of way department forces, with the exception of some repairs made to a few small inspection cars used by car repairers, which repairs were made by shop forces. There was so little of this work that it was not found profitable to continue this method, so all of the repairs on all motor cars were transferred to the. maintenance of way department. There is very little of what we term heavy work on these cars, as we have found it more profitable to trade the cars in on new ones than it is to spend money on extensive overhauling. The entire repair work on these cars only takes a small part of one man's time. Most of the repairs to these cars are made out on the line by the men operating them.
The claim, therefore, of the machinists' craft, for this -%vork is not well founded and the maintenance of way organization, to whom this work belongs, are protesting our taking any of this work away from them.
We are recognizing the validity of such protests and are continuing to assign such repair work to them.
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.
Rule 60 of the current agreement provides, "Machinists' work shall consist of adjusting, shaping, boring, slotting, milling, and grinding of metals used in building, assembling, maintaining, dismantling, and installing locomotives and engines (operated by steam or other power)."
Under the terms of this rule, the maintaining of gas engines in this dispute is the work of machinists.