STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company that:
(a) The Carrier failed to properly compensate the following employes for services rendered on the specified rest days (Carrier's file L-130-38).
(b) The claimants be paid the difference between the compensation paid them and what they are properly entitled to for rest day services.
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: The claimants are regularly assigned to positions in the Silvis Repair Shop with a work week consisting of flue working days, Monday through Friday, and two rest days, Saturday and Sunday.
As clearly demonstrated by the above rule, all payment is predicated on work performed.
It has not been the practice since the first Agreement between the parties (July, 1921), under any call or overtime rules where signal shop employes were required to work on Sundays or holidays prior to the 40-Hour Week Agreement, or on rest days or holidays subsequent thereto, to pay for noon meal periods not worked when the full number of hours of the regularly assigned work week day were worked.
We believe these many years of practice are proof positive of the intent of the parties when present Rules 17 (c) and 18 were made a part of the Agreement.
Without prejudice to, or in any manner waiving Carrier's position as to the merits of this claim, it is the Carrier's further position that should the claim be sustained, the only penalty that may be assessed is that at pro rata rate of pay (see your Board's Awards 5923 and 6241).
It is hereby affirmed that all of the foregoing is, in substance, known to the employes' representatives.
OPINION OF BOARD: The facts of this case are not in dispute. The claimants are signalmen and signal helpers at Carrier's Signal Repair Shop at Silvis, Illinois. On the dates in question (all rest days for these employes) Claimants were assigned to work eight hours with an additional half hour lunch period. Thus they were scheduled to work from 7:00 A. M., their usual starting time on regularly assigned days of the work week, and were released at 3:30 P. M., also as on days of the regular work week, and were given a lunch period of thirty minutes without pay, the same as on regular days, Monday through Friday. In short, on these rest days, as on regular work days, each employe had eight hours of work broken by a half-hour lunch period. For this each was paid for eight hours at time and one-half. It is the contention of the Brotherhood that, for such rest day assignments, the employes must be paid at time and one-half rate on a minute basis from the time called to work until released.
(Admittedly paragraph (2) of Section (c) does not apply in the instant case.)
ect of meal periods, it is difficult for us to accept the contention of the rotherhood that the Agreement does not provide for meal periods on rest days. On the contrary, if Rules 9 and 10 have any meaning, the Carrier is required to provide meal periods at reasonable intervals or lay itself open to the charge of contract violation. We cannot agree with the Organization's contention that "it is the Carrier's prerogative to refuse `breaks' in rest days service if it so desires . . . ." Rules 9 and 10 are applicable to service on rest days as well as on days of the regular work week.
This being the case, we think it was the intent of the parties to follow regular practice on rest day assignments, as on other days, so far as meal periods are concerned. If it is customary to allow a thirty minute break for lunch "between the end of the fourth hour and the beginning of the sixth hour after starting work", the Carrier is not relieved of its obligation to provide such a break simply ecause this is a rest day assignment.
We must give effect to all pertinent language in the Agreement and not lift one clause out of context to bring about a result which the parties obviously did not intend.
According to Rule 9 the Carrier is required to pay for the lunch period at the overtime rate, "if the established meal period is not afforded". The implication is clear that if the meal period is afforded no such penalty rate prevails.
Regardless of the language of Rule 18, we must conclude that it was the intent of the parties to provide for meal periods on rest days as on other days of the week; and the only reasonable conclusion is that such breaks were to be in keeping with regular practice and to be paid for at the time and one-half rate only when not afforded. When the employe is required to work from the end of the fourth hour to the beginning of the sixth hour without a break he must be paid for 30 minutes at the punitive rate and allowed a break for lunch "at the first opoprtunity". We think it was the clear intent of the parties to pay the punitive rate for lunch periods only when such periods were worked and not allowed as breaks for the employes. 7360-8 1053
Work scheduled on rest days is paid for at the punitive rate, for time worked, with a minimum guarantee of two hours and forty minutes. In this case the Carrier worked the Claimants at regular hours and allowed the regular lunch period. The employes were paid for the full eight hours worked at time and one-half. We must conclude that the Agreement was not violated.
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