THE ATCHISON, TOPEKA AND SANTE FE
RAILWAY COMPANY
- Western Lines -
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of The Order of Railroad Telegraphers on the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway that:
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: An Agreement between the parties, bearing effective date of June 1, 1951, is in evidence.
This Agreement provides for the establishment of a work week of 40 hours consisting of five days of eight hours each with two consecutive days off in each seven. It also provides that efforts will be made by the parties to agree on the accumulation of rest time and the granting of longer consecutive rest periods.
Obviously on a large railroad, where a number of one-man agencies are open six days each week, Monday through Saturday, with assigned rest days of Saturday and Sunday, it is impossible to relieve all of the agents on Saturdays by extra employes. It was therefore necessary to select a group of such stations where rest days can be accumulated and by agreement provide for the incumbents to work six days each week for five weeks to be relieved the following week by imcumbent of a regularly assigned rest day relief assignment, assigned to work at each of the five stations one week, observe the rest days which he had also accumulated on his own assignment and again begin the cycle of relief work.
The stations at Perryton, Dumas, Kings Mill, Spearman and Etter, Texas, were open six days each week. It was agreed that the incumbents of each of the agent's positions would accumulate Saturday rest days as above described and a regularly assigned rest day relief assignment be established to perform the necessary rest day relief work at the respective stations every six weeks.
the Carrier to violate the clear and unambiguous provisions of the aforementioned and referred to Article III, Section 14, of the Telegraphers' Agreement.
A denial of the Employes' claim in the instant dispute is therefore respectfully requested, for the reasons hereinbefore expressed.
The Carrier is uninformed as to the arguments the Organization will advance in its ex parte submission and accordingly reserves the right to submit such additional facts, evidence and argument as it may conclude are required in replying to the Organization's ex parts submission.
All that is contained herein is either known or available to the Employes or their representatives.
OPINION OF BOARD: The facts are not in dispute. The stations at Perryton, Dumas, Kings Mill, Spearman and Etter, Texas were each open and operating six days a week-Monday through Saturday, An Agent-Telegrapher was regularly assigned to each station.
The Agreement between the parties provides for a 40-hour work week in five days of eight hours each with two consecutive days of rest. It was agreed by the parties and the employes that the Agent-Telegrapher at each of the five stations work six days-Monday through Saturday. Saturday was a rest day for each. Such Agent-Telegraphers were permitted to accumulate five successive Saturday rest days and they were then relieved during the sixth week by a regularly assigned relief Agent. This relief Agent worked six consecutive days -Monday through Saturday-at each of the five stations while the regularly assigned Agent-Telegrapher was off. The relief Agent also accumulated five consecutive days and was off every sixth week.
XIr. R. D. Guill was the regularly assigned Agent-Telegrapher at Etter, Texas. Claimant was the regularly assigned Relief Agent-Telegrapher. From Monday, December 24, 1956, through Saturday, December 29, 1956, Claimant relieved Guill on the latter 's accumulated rest days. It was necessary to have an Agent-Telegrapher at Etter, Texas on Sunday, December 30, 1956. Carrier assigned Guill, the regularly assigned Agent-Telegrapher to work that day. Petitioner states that, under the terms of the Agreement, Claimant should have been assigned. No extra or unassigned empolye who did not work 40 hours that week was available.
Guilt was the regularly assigned Agent-Telegrapher at Etter, Texas. Every Sunday was one of his regularly assigned rest days. He was off each Sunday except in emergencies when work was required on that day and when no extra employe was available. The one week of rest taken every sixth week included his five previously accumulated consecutive Saturdays, his Saturday rest day that week, and his regular Sunday rest day that week. 11661-11 251
Claimant also observed every Sunday as one of his rest days. He, too, was off every sixth week which included five accumulated consecutive Saturdays -one at each of the five stations. His Sunday rest day was for his regular relief Position No. 9025 and not for the Agent-Telegrapher position at Etter or at any of the other four stations.
Claimant was not the "regular employe" at the Etter station during the week of December 24, 1956 through December 30, 1956. Guill was the "regular employe." Claimant was the regular employe on Position No. 9025 which that week included assignment as Relief Agent-Telegrapher Monday through Saturday at the Etter, Texas station. Claimant's relief position was bulletined to work Monday through Saturday with Sunday as a rest day. He is a "regular employe" on that position only.
Petitioner argues, and cites several Awards of this Division, that the order of rest day relief assignments should first go to the regularly assigned relief employe; second, to an available extra employe; and last to the regular occupant of the position. We have no quarrel with this general principle. But we do not agree that Claimant was the regularly assigned relief employe for the Agent-Telegrapher position at Etter, Texas, for Sunday, December 30, 1956. He was only the regularly assigned relief employe for Guill for the five consecutive Saturdays previously accumulated and which that week represented Monday through Friday, December 24 through December 28, 1956. He was also the regularly assigned relief employe for Guill's rest day on Saturday, December 29, 1956. Claimant's position was bulletined as a relief AgentTelegrapher scheduled to relieve other Agent-Telegraphers Mondays through Saturdays inclusive. His position scheduled no relief assignments on Sundays. That day was Claimant's rest day on his own position as bulletined.
On the basis of all of the facts in the record, Carrier properly assigned Guill to work on Sunday, December 30, 1956.
FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, 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