OPINION OF BOARD: In June of 1947 a demand was made upon this carrier by representatives of engine, train and yard service em loyes for changes in rules. In order to determine how much it would cost if proposals were granted Carrier applied the proposed changes to existing time and payroll records and translated the result into a report. The request for this report came to the operating and accounting officials on September 5, 1947 with instructions that it must be in Chicago on or before September 25, 1947. It reached Chicago September 23, 1947.

The basic records from which the report was derived were the daily time records for employes in the services covered by the proposals for rules changes. These daily records are compiled and maintained regularly for payroll purgoses by trainmen and enginemen timekeepers in the Audit of Expenditures Office.

The claim here, in essence, is that these time records belonged to the timekeepers who made he daily entries and that any data which the Carrier required for such special purpose as here involved should have been drawn off by them on an overtime basis.

It is not disputed that the work involved here is not a part of the routine or regularly assigned work of these timekeepers. It is not even regularly intermittent like an annual inventory or annual report of operations; two or three or even more years may intervene between such reports.

No positions were abolished; no new positions were created. No seniority was disturbed. No timekeeper was deprived of his regular assignment or disturbed in his regular duties. They were not called upon, however, to prepare the report upon an overtime basis. The Carrier explains this by saying that the report could not have been delivered on time if confined to overtime by these timekeepers who had their regular duties to perform and that the data were confidential. However valid these reasons may be they are material here only if compilation of this report belonged exclusively to the claimant timekeepers.

The Organization submits an affidavit from five timekeepers who affirm that "within their knowledge" when previous wage studies were made the records were not removed from their office nor was the work done by other forces.

The Carrier submits unsworn statements from seven officials in the Accounting, Auditing and Personnel Departments, whose service records range from sixteen (16) years to forty-five (45) years, who maintain, in general, that sometimes these studies have been made entirey by schedule employes, sometimes entirely by non-agreement employes and sometimes by both or by employes brought in from the outside. These statements are to a degree self-serving as claimed for the Organization but it can hardly be said they contain no truth. Only one specific instance is cited, with date, by these officials; none by the timekeepers. The Assistant Auditor of the Expenditures says, ". . in 1941 I worked with Personnel Department forces entirely and basic records were shipped to Chicago and after we had completed the study, the records were then returned to the Accounting Department offices."

The timekeepers who made the affidavit spoke "within their knowledge." We do not question their integrity when we conclude, from the record, that there undoubtedly have been other instances than the one cited over a span of years in which studies, similar to the one under review here, were made by others outside the personal knowledge of these men.

The right to make the basic timekeeping records clearly belongs to timekeepers under their agreement and their assignment. So also does any regularly assigned work, bulletined and held by right of seniority, that may develop from subsequent operations growing out of the use of these records. That they could have been made the report in question here more efficiently than others, as they claim, because of their familiarity with agreements, is not a matter tht we are required to pass judgment upon. The records, however, belong to the Carrier. They are made for its use in the conduct of its business. In the absence of a clear showing that this special work belongs exclusively to the Claimants, to be done by overtime as they claim, we conclude the Carrier did not violae the Agreement when it assembled tis report as it did. See Award No. 4585. We distinguish the instant case from Award No. 4642. There the record clearly shows that claimant clerks had done all of the work in connection with previous similar duties.

Numerous awards have been submitted by both parties. The Organization cites Awards Nos. 1646, 2282, 2469, 3417, 3587, 4499, 4500 and 4532. For the Carrier we are confronted with Awards Nos. 615, 906, 1078, 1418, 1781, 1802, 2013, 2125, 2138, 3003, 3584, 3867, 4027 and 4117. We have examined all of these awards carefully. They possess varying degrees of applicability to the facts here. They are in conflict. Few of them fit the situation precisely except for certain principles related to the general application of the Scope rule. For example, if the work here were regularly assigned work, as was the case in Award o. 3587, which it was not, the applicability of that award here would be clear.

Award 1802 is persuasive although there the problem was one of the employment of outsiders to make an audit. There the Board found for the Carrier. Awards Nos. 2013, 2138, 3003, 3867 and 4027 have elements of similarity touch-

fupon special work as distinguished from regularly assigned work that we d to be applicable here.

In Award No. 2013 we said, "To say that the six clerks . . . had an absolute right to do this work (inventory) on an overtime basis is entirely unjustified.

It cannot be said that the employes have the right to insist upon work being deferred or established systems of Accounting upset in order that they may have the privilege of working overtime and getting overtime pay."

In Award 3003 we said ". . . the Scope Rule does not specify the work which falls within the Agreement. That it was intended that certain work did belong to the Clerks is an accepted fact if the Agreement is to have any validity .... On the other hand, the contention that the Scope Rule provides that clerical employes ... shall perform all clerical work has no foundation."

In Award 1078, telegrapher's case, we said "Reasonable flexibility in the administration of the railroad industry, except in so far as it is inhibited by law or restricted, expressly or by necessary implication, through agreement of the parties, is essential to the welfare of the employes as well as to that of the carriers."

Claimants have not demonstrated their exclusive right to make the special report in question here.

FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:

That both parties to this dispute waived oral hearing thereon;

That the Carrier and the Employes involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act, as approved June 21,1934;

That this Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; and

That the Agreement was not violated.

AWARD