NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
SECOND DIVISION
The Second Division consisted of the regular members and in
addition Referee William H. Coburn when award was rendered.
SYSTEM FEDERATION NO. 101, RAILWAY EMPLOYES'
DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO (Carmen)
GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY
(King Street Passenger Station)
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: C'arman-Welder Thomas M. Rutledge, hereinafter referred to as the Claimant, is a regularly assigned employee at the King Street Passenger Station, a jointly owned and operated facility of the Great Northern, hereinafter referred to as the Carrier, and the Northern Pacific Railroad Company.
Friday, August 5, 1966, was not only the claimant's birthday-holiday, a holiday recognized by the applicable Agreement, but was also the Claimant's regularly assigned rest day. He was required to work eight hours that day and was compensated eight hours at pro rata rate for his birthday; eight hours at the time and one-half rate for working his rest day.
A claim was filed on September 1, 19'66 on behalf of the claimant Tequesting eight hours additional pay at the time and one-half rate for services claimant performed on his birthday-holiday.
When the forces on a holiday are not reduced, under the terms of the Agreement, the employes are called on the basis being first out on their rest days on the overtime list on the shift involved.
Claimant was on his rest day and was first man out on the overtime list for the shift involved and was called to work on his rest day August 5, 1966.
Claimant submitted time cards, for services performed on this date, in the amount of eight (8) hours for birthday-holiday pay: eight (8) hours for
"The rate of time and one-half for work performed because of working through a period which should be allocated to a vacation, working on a holiday, working on a rest day or working in excess of eight hours in a day is a premium rate; the purpose of which is to discourage the Carrier from requiring employes to work at such times. By the mere incidence of a holiday and a day which is treated as a vacation day for bookkeeping purposes coming together, the premium cannot be converted to triple time. And, it must be considered as triple time under the employes' theory since there is no more than eight hours worked and for that time worked they are seeking twenty-four hours pay. This is more than just pyramiding premiums; for the premium is 1/2 time, but under the employes theory there would be added a premium of one and onehalf times the basic rate to arrive at twenty-four hours' pay for the eight hours worked on the holiday which also happened to be a `vacation' day. Assuming the correctness of the employes' theory, it would logically follow that if the claimants here had been required to work in excess of eight hours on the dates of claim, they would then be entitled to pay at 4 1/2 times the basic rate for the overtime hours. It is doubtful that any such absurd result was intended by the premium pay rules.
"We think it is clear that in the absence of rules showing a clear intent to the contrary (and we are not acquainted with any nor cited to any) that the premiums required for working on a vacation day which also happens to be a holiday were designed to operate on a concurrent non-cumulative or non-consecutive basis and that they were not intended to be pyramided. Consequently the proper payment for the time actually worked by the claimants on December 26, 1960 was one and onehalf time."
In view of the Organization's bargaining approach since 1949 to similar issues involved in their Section 6 notices and demands, the extensive practice that has developed on this property, and the precedent established by this Board, it is quite clear that Schedule Rule 16 and Article II, Section 6(g) of the November 21, 1964 Agreement simply require that a specified rate of pay is to be applied to work performed by an employee on a holiday that is also his rest day. That rate of pay does not exceed the time-and-one-half rate under any circumstances, and there is nothing to indicate that the rate and minimum payment under any one rule is to be separated from and made exclusive of the rate and minimum payment which might also be applicable to the same work under a different rule.
1. There is no language in Schedule Rule 16 or any other existing rule or agreement which indicates that an employee who works a rest day which is also a holiday is entitled to a single payment computed at the triple-time rate or duplicate payments computed at the time-and-one-half rate.
2. On the contrary, Rule 16 specifically provides that "Service performed on an employe's assigned rest days and * * * legal holidays * '~ * shall be paid for at the rate of time and one-half" (Emphasis added)
3. The Organization's representatives have admitted in testimony before various Presidential Emergency Boards that an employee working on a holiday-rest day is paid only once at the time-and-one-half rate.
4. The several unsuccessful national negotiations engaged in by the Organization to obtain penalty payments greater than the time-and-one-half
rate for working on a holiday-rest day is strong evidence that the existing rules and agreements contain no penalties such as claimed in this case.
5. Employees representing by the petitioning Organization on this property have not received the rate demanded in this case even though the Schedule rule in question has existed in its present form for many years.
6. Second Division Awards 5317, 5318 and 5319 have already specifically repudiated the same basic contentions advanced by the petitioning organization in this case.
7. Additionally, the various Divisions of the National Railroad Adjustment Board have consistently rejected claims demanding duplicate payments and penalties for a single period of service.
For the foregoing reasons, the Carrier respectfully requests that the claim of the employees be denied.
All of the evidence and data contained herein has been presented to the duly authorized representation of the Organization.
The Second Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds that:
The carrier or carriers and the employ 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 asid dispute waived right of appearance at hearing thereon.
This is another of several disputes over the proper method of compensating an employe covered by the November 21, 1964, Mediation Agreement (Agreement) who performs service on his rest day which is also his birthday-holiday.
The Board has heretofore held that such employe is entitled to be paid a day at time and one-half for service performed on his rest day and an additional day at that rate for service performed on his birthday-holiday (Awards 5402, 5543, 5603, are typical).
The record in this case, however, contains credible and uncontroverted evidence that the Carrier and the Organizations representing Shop Craft employes on this particular property have followed a practice of applying a single time and one-half rate for work performed on either a simultaneous rest day-holiday or a rest day-birthday. (Carrier's Exhibits 10 through 15).
Accordingly, the existing practice on this property as described above applies and governs the method of computing the compensation due Claimants in this case. He was paid in accordance therewith. Consequently, the