DISPUTE: CLAIM OF EMPLOYES: Claim for pay for all carmen, helpers and carmen apprentices for all time lost between April 19, 1937, to November 6, 1937, account Buena Vista car department being worked in violation of Rules 6 and 16 of the agreement.
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: The car department forces at Buena Vista were worked five days per week over a spread of seven days per week between April 19, 1937, and November 6, 1937, by means of staggering, and, in some instances, the men were given from six to eight days off in succession, which made it impossible to get in forty hours' time in the given week. The working schedule was arranged so that all employes who were required to work on overtime days (Sundays and holidays) were laid off during the regular week days to make up the time. Neither the representatives nor the men were given any voice over which days they would work or be off, but instead the schedule was arbitrarily imposed by the management.
POSITION OF EMPLOYES: It is the contention of the employes that it is not permissible under the provisions of Rule 16 of the agreement to work employes forty hours per week over a spread of fifty-six hours, or seven days per week and that bulletin No. 24, posted over the signature of W. D. Flood, car foreman, on April 13, 1937, is contrary to the rule. Rule 16 of the agreement reads in part as follows:
This rule does not provide how this forty hours shall be made, and in order to carry on the work without detriment to the service, it was necessary to work out a schedule that did not allow this time to be made in five consecuive days in all instances in each week. The older men on the seniority roster had five days in consecutive order and relief men were staggered as is shown in Exhibit 7. This was necessary in order to establish a schedule that was workable and which gave each man five days in each week.
The local committee at Buena Vista made a schedule based on each man taking twenty-two (22) days' vacation and the remaining men to work full time. The schedule did not specify what should be called full time. The inspection jobs must be protected seven days per week, and repair track jobs six days per week. The schedule submitted by the local committee was not workable for the following reasons: The reduction in expenses by giving each man twenty-two (22) days' vacation was not sufficient to meet the amount of money appropriated for the work.
No consideration is given the requirements of the service or the number of jobs required on shop track as the schedule states: "All relief men not relieving regular men to work on shop track." This would result in an insufficient number of men on repair track on some days and on others there would be more men than could be used.
No consideration is given the first paragraph of Rule 8 of the agreement, which reads:
Rule 6 was not violated. If in the schedule of five days per week a man worked more than eight hours per day, he was paid at overtime rates for time in excess of eight hours and he was not laid off to bring his total time down to forty (40) hours per week. In working forty (40) hours per week, if a man worked on Sunday, he was paid straight time for thirty-two (32) hours and overtime for eight (8) hours on Sunday, and was not required to lay off to bring his total earnings for the week down to what he would have made by working forty (40) hours at straight time.
The railway company had nothing to gain by working the men forty (40) hours per week. It was done in the interest of the employes as a whole, to spread the work so that all might share in it.
This practice of working forty (40) hours per week was in effect at Bowden, Florida, (Northern Freight Terminal of the Florida East Coast Railway) and at New Smyrna Beach, Florida, (junction of the Okeechobee Branch and main line), during the summer of 1937, and is in effect at the Bowden, Florida, shops this summer of 1938, and this schedule has been agreed to by the carmen at these points and no objection has been raised by the local committees at those points.
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.