The Second Division consisted of the regular members and in
addition Referee William H. Coburn when award was rendered.
SYSTEM FEDERATION NO. 2, RAILWAY EMPLOYES'
DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO (Machinists)
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: Machinist P. E. Taylor, hereinafter referred to as the Claimant, was regularly employed by the Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., hereinafter referred to as Carrier, as a Machinist in Carrier's Kansas City Diesel Shop, with work week Saturday through Wednesday, rest days Thursday and Friday.
Claimant took his 1965 vacation commencing Saturday, April 3, 1965, and his birthday occurred on Tuesday, April 13th, a vacation day of his vacation period for which he was paid a day's vacation pay. However, Carrier failed to allow him birthday holiday compensation for the day, Tuesday, April 13, 1965.
Claim was filed with proper officer of the Carrier under date of May 25, 1965, contending that Claimant was entitled to eight (8) hours' Birthday Holiday compensation for his birthday, April 13th, in addition to vacation pay received for that day, and subsequently handled up to and including the highest officer of Carrier designated to handle such claims, all of whom declined to make satisfactory adjustment.
The agreement effective June 1, 1960, as subsequently amended, particularly the February 4, 1965 Agreement, is controlling.
All matters contained herein have been the subject matter of correspondence and/or conference.
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 waived right of appearance at hearing thereon. This is the first of several related cases involving the question of what compensation is payable to an employe covered by the National Mediation Agreement of February 4, 1965, whose birthday-holiday occurs on a work day during the period he is on vacation.
The material facts are not in dispute. Claimant was regularly employed as a Machinist by the Carrier, with an assigned work week of Saturday through Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays off. His 1965 vacation commented on Saturday, April 3, 1965, and his birthday fell on Tuesday, April 13, which would have been a regularly assigned work day if Claimant had not been absent on vacation and if it had not been his birthday. He was paid vacation pay for April 13 but his claim for an additional eight hours at the pro rata rate for the birthday-holiday was not allowed; hence this dispute.
Article II-Holidays of the February 4, 1965 Agreement, is applicable and controlling under the foregoing facts. In pertinent part it reads as follows:
"Article II Section 6(a) expressly provides for two separate and distinct situations. The first concerns a birthday that occurs on a work day of the employe's work week; Claimant's case clearly comes within that category for his birthday fell on Thursday, a work day of his assigned work week. As to the first situation, Section 6(a) stipulates that the employe will be given the day off with pay, one of the two alternatives mentioned in the first sentence of Section 6.
The second situation is where an employe's birthday occurs on other than a work day of his work week; there he is entitled to 'eight hours pay at the pro rata rate of the position to which assigned, in addition to any other pay to which he is otherwise entitled for that day, if any.' From an examination of the language, punctuation and construction of Section 6(a), it is entirely clear that the clause just quoted does not apply to the first situation."
"Nowhere in Article II, Section 6 is there a requirement that are extra day's pay be given for a birthday or other holiday that falls within the vacation week on a day that is a work day of the employe's regular work week. The absence of such a provision from the 1964 Agreement is particularly significant, for by the time it had been negotiated, prior awards, interpretations and Emergency Board reports had made it abundantly clear that in the railroad industry employes will not receive additional pay when a holiday occurs during their vacation on what ordinarily would be a work day. See Second Division Awards 2277, 2302, 3477, 3518 and 3557 as well as Awards 9640 and 9641 of the Third Division."