and there is no Agreement requirement or authority fox the payment of thi: claim.

OPINION OF BOARD: These are the facts: The Claimant is a monthly rated Signalman with more than fifteen years of continuous service who thereby qualified for three weeks vacation under the provision of Section 1(c) and 1(d) of Article I of the Agreement of August 21, 1954. The Claimant requested that his vacation in 1956 be scheduled from September 4 (the day after Labor Day) until September 24, inclusive. The Carrier declined this request and scheduled the vacation from September 3 to September 22, inclusive. The Local Chairman of the Brotherhood who cooperated in assigning the vacation dates in accordance with Article 4(a) of the Vacation Agreement, signed the vacation schedule, under protest, of the starting date of the Claimant's vacation period.

Article 4(a) of the Vacation reads, as follows:

"Vacations may be taken from January 1st to December 31st and due regard consistent with requirements of service shall be given to the desires and preferences of the employees in seniority order when fixing the dates for their vacations.

"The local committee of each organization signatory hereto and the representatives of the Carrier will cooperate in assigning vacation dates."

The reason Carrier has urged for its refusal to grant Claimants request to start the vacation on September 4 is its conviction that it would be contrary to the purpose and intent of Section 3 of Article I of the Agreement of August 21, 1954.

Previous awards adopted by this Board on the proposition of the assignment of vacation periods are in disagreement and cannot be reconciled. It is necessary, then, that we consider the reasoning applied in the determination of previous awards on this subject in reaching a conclusion in the instant case.

Claimant relies principally on Award 9558 (Bernstein) which is regarded favorably in a later Award 10377 (Dolnick). Following are a few pertinent observations expressed in the Opinion of Award 9558;

"The Vacation Agreement of 1941 requires open minded consultation and mutual accommodation for the very reason that the criteria for vacation assignments do not contain the certainty of a mathematical formula. The `X' of the equasion is to be supplied by the agreement of the parties, each recognizing the legitimate needs of the other. On the one hand, `due regard' is to be given to the desires of employes. On the other hand, such regard is to be `consistent with the requirements of service'."

"It may well be that a standard procedure applicable to all employes for vacation assignment purposes is desirable."

"It already has been observed that Article 4 (a) does not prescribe the precise value of competing Carrier and employe desires. In the case of a conflict, which is "o be superior? It seems that the

Carrier's 'requirements of service' is the more important element for Article 4 (a) requires that 'due regard' be given employe desires but only 'consistent with requirements of service'."

"In its presentation here the Carrier argues that nothing in the Vacation Agreement prohibits it from scheduling all vacations to begin on the first day of the employes, work week; that on the contrary, the Vacation Agreement contemplates an orderly procedure in the granting of vacations, and that in following its managerial function it observed that principle without reference to holidays; that each employe then, in order of seniority, had the right to make his own selection, avoiding weeks including holidays if he wished."

* * * * *

. if either party's 'unilateral determination of vacation assignment policy' is void because not the product of cooperation they both are. But as was correctly pointed out in Award 6571:

'It is clear that Article 4 (a) requires cooperation between the parties in the assignment of vacation dates and that there is, therefore, a general joint responsibility for the administration of the Vacation Agreement. But this is not to say that every action taken must be joint.

'Cooperation is what the Agreement calls for and this involved some mutually understood unilateral action as well as some joint action.'

"There can be no doubt that each party is entitled to formulate and advocate its own assignment policy, and that if in any instance the parties do not agree, this Board must decide which is right, without arbitrarily denying either the right to be heard."

"In Award 9558, upon which the Employes rely, it was said:

'It already has been observed that Article 4 (a) does not prescribe the precise value of competing Carrier and employe desires. In the case of a conflict, which is to be superior? It seems that the Carrier's "requirements of service" is the more important element for Article 4 (a) requires that "due regard" be given employe desires but only "consistent with requirements of service".'

"That statement is obviously correct, for the whole purpose of the common effort of Carrier and Employes is the operation of the transportation system for the service of the public. Regularity and order are of the essence of the complicated railroad industry and a uniform, orderly nondiscriminatory policy seems normally consistent with requirements of service; consequently a departure from it should have sounder reason than the demand of one employe for preferential treatment to avoid the application to him of a rule. Certainly not all employes can have paid vacations without included

holidays, and fewer still can have ten-day vacations immediately preceded or followed by a paid holiday. If they could, Article I, Section 3 of the Agreement of August 31, 1954, would be completely nullified. Agreements should be construed and applied to give effect to all their provisions, if possible."

It will be observed on examination of these two Awards 9558 and 9635, that a conclusion is reached in Award 9558 primarily on a factual basisthat the instructions that vacations should commence on Monday were not supported by a factual showing of "requirements of service". Otherwise, in enunciating principles controlling situations similar to the one presented here, the reasoning applied is essentially the same in both awards-there is little to distinguish between them. However, in arriving at a determination of how the rules applicable to the instant case shall be interpreted, we are on much more solid ground in adopting the reasoning advance in support of Award 9635 - (Johnson).

In the instant case the parties co-operated in the assignment of the vacations in compliance with Article 4 (a) of the Vacation Agreement and the fact that Carrier refused Claimants demand for preferential treatment did not constitute a refusal to co-operate and is in compliance with Section 3 of Article I of the Agreement of August 21, 1954.

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 Agreement was not violated.

AWARD