STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of The Order of Railroad Telegraphers on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, that:
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: An Agreement bearing effective date of June 15, 1947, by and between the parties and referred to herein as the Telegraphers' Agreement, is in evidence; copies thereof are on file with the National Railroad Adjustment Board.
Prior to July 1945 all communication service of record, such as messages, reports, train orders, etc., were transmitted and/or received by employes under the Telegraphers' Agreement. The approximate time that printing telegraph machines, with the auxiliary card-controlled tape punch or tape-controlled card punch machines, began operations and such operations assigned to persons not under the Teegraphers' Agreement are:
While this is the method of operation as applied to the punch card system on Carrier's lines, the Teletype Printing Machine may be put to very many other uses with varying methods of operation. To settle various jurisdictional issues which had arisen out of the teletype's numerous applications, in 1935 the then presidents of the Order of Railway Telegraphers and the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks reached a comprehensive agreement as to the jurisdiction of their respective organizations over employes operating teletype machines. The agreement was as follows:
The 'agreement makes clear that the work on the New Haven has been properly assigned. The system used does not replace communication formerly handled by telegraph-it is in lieu of distribution by mail or messenger. The
Ncope rule of the New Haven's agreements is in accord with the 1935 underanding. And the quotation further confirms the meaning of the revised scope rule of the 1947 and 1949 contracts. It is persuasive evidence that this claim should be denied.
Carrier's position is that the positions in issue are properly filled by employes under the Clerks' schedule. We submit the preceding sections of this brief support the assignment of work that has been made.
The fundamental issue is, however, one of jurisdiction involving the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks and the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, whether all clerks now employed in preparing records at Carrier's nine principal yards shall be displaced by employes of the Telegraphers' craft. For the dispute is clearly over existing positions now filled under the Clerk's contract. 'The wording of the Employes' claim makes this abundantly clear. It does not concern either abolished positions or a request that new positions be established.
In these circumstances the Clerks' organization is an essential party to the dispute, for a lawful order may not be made without giving it an opportunity to be heard. Not only has the Board repeatedly so decided, it is also well settled that there is no power under the Railway Labor At to proceed in a jurisdictional dispute.
Carrier respectfully requests that the Board dismiss this dispute for lack of jurisdiction.
If jurisdiction is assumed, we submit the claim should be denied as without merit upon a finding that the work involved in the claim has been properly assigned and that the agreement with the Employes does not call for any different arrangement.
A11 facts and arguments have been presented to Employes' representatives.
OPINION OF BOARD: The Order of Railroad Telegraphers claims that the Carrier has violated and continues to violate their Agreement because it 5627-30 335
has declined and continues to decline to assign certain work to employes covered by the Agreement.
The record shows that the Carrier has entered into another collective bargaining with the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks and has assigned the work in question to employes under that Agreement who are now performing it. The Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks has not been served with notice pursuant to Section 3(j) of the Railway Labor Act.
There is color in a claim that the Scope rules of both Agreements cover the work. It also appears, however, that the two Organizations, by an exchange of letters between them, have reached a mutual understanding upon the interpretation of their respective Scope rules with respect to the kind of work involved in the claim. But it does not appear that the Carrier, also a party to the collective bargaining Agreements, assents to this interpretation; nor can it be said with certainty that any specific application of this interpretation to the facts presented by this claim will comport with the Clerks' understanding of it.
In these circumstances, the Carrier's motion to dismiss the claim should be granted without prejudice upon the authority of, and for the reason stated, in Award 5432. See also Award 5599.
FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, after giving the parties to this dispute due notice of hearing thereon, and upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:
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 claim should be dismissed without prejudice for the reasons above found.