between the parties, it is stepping over into a field that the Act expressly reserves to the parties themselves, with the assistance of arbitration, mediation and emergency board.

"Moreover, if agreements made by a railroad and its employes through the process of collective bargaining are real contracts and not worthless scraps of paper, then disputes arising out of the application of a contract must be decided by the Adjustment Board in accordance with the provisions of the contract itself, and not on grounds lying wholly outside of and independent of the contract. If the decision of the Board is based upon some other ground than the contract, the contract is of no effect at all, and there might as well be no contract.

"The present claim must be decided under the contract and under the contract it is invalid."

'The Board would be required to write a new rule to support the penalty requested by the organization as the persons for whom penalty is claimed are not covered by the agreement or employes; the agreement requires payment only for work performed, and this penalty is for work not performed; all positions are required to be regularly assigned and employes occupying are limited to 40 hours assigned per week for work actually performed.

The request of the employes is clearly for a penalty. The request is clearly for a penalty not contained in the agreement. And, it is self-evident the request is one for the Board to rewrite .the agreement for the employes through the guise of an interpretation and thus exceed their lawful authority and jurisdiction.

The penalty claimed is clearly not due under the agreement, and the carriers respectfully request the claim be denied.

Except as herein expressly admitted, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company and Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company of Texas, and each of them, deny each and every, all and singular, the allegations of the organization and employes in alleged unadjusted dispute, claim or grievance.

For each and all of the foregoing reasons, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company and Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company of Texas, and each of them, respectfully request the Second Division, National Railroad Adjustment Board, deny said claim, and grant said railroad companies, and each of them, such other relief to which they may be entitled.

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.

Parties to said dispute were given due notice of hearing thereon.

In this docket claim is made for the number of hours of labor charged by an outside manufacturer for the work of repairing and testing fuel injectors shipped to a manufacturer by the carrier on July 30 and August 5, 1957. Compensation is requested for two furloughed machinists as a penalty.

'The carrier claims that certain remanufactured units with a warranty were purchased and delivered before a like number were collected on the property and sold to the manufacturer as scrap. This has not been refuted by the organization.

It is difficult to establish exact facts in such cases. We incline to believe that the old units were traded in and we can only conjecture as to whether the price allowed was for scrap.

It is shown only as an unsupported conclusion that the units were in fact rebuilt after being purchased by the manufacturer as scrap. However, there is no doubt that if the old ones were repaired they belonged to the manufacturer at that time and their original identity has been lost to our view in the present case. This is the point of distinction between the facts in our Award No. 2841 and the present case.

While the statement of claim that the repairing and testing of injectors is machinists' work is true, the application of the rule is limited to work connected with the carrier's property.

AWARD