SOUTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY
(Pacific Lines)
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: There is in evidence an agreement by and between the parties to this dispute, effective December 1, 1944, reprinted March 1, 1951, and as amended.
At page 69 of said Agreement are listed the positions existing at Phoenix, Arizona on the effective date of said Agreement. The listings are:
As the above wage scale listing indicates, the Carrier maintains aroundthe-clock telegraph (telephone) service at Phoenix, Arizona for the purpose of handling all communications arising at or destined to this station.
On the dates set forth in the statement of claim, Claim No. 1, and on subsequent dates thereto, as a direct result of the inauguration of central billing and accounting practices at Phoenix, insofar as this dispute is concerned, the Carrier required or permitted clerical employes not covered by the Telegraphers' Agreement at Phoenix to transmit messages of record in the form of waybill numbers over the telephone to the agent-telegrapher at Gilbert, Arizona.
So as not to unduly burden the record of this case, we are attaching hereto, ORT Exhibit Nos. 1 thru 34-Claim No. 1, a representative number of such messages of record which present the "necessary proof of essential material 12614 41 -1 513
The facts in this claim readily establish that the use of the telephone by clerks at Phoenix, Weed and Redding for the exchange of information necessary in the performance of their regular duties did not involve or contravene any provision of the current Agreement. The action forming basis of this claim is analogous to that involved in claims progressed by Petitioner in Carrier's Exhibits A, B and C, and it must be obvious to the Division that if the issue was without merit at the time the claims there involved were abandoned by Petitioner in this dispute (Grand Officer Docket of March 15, 1954), there is no reason whatever to conclude that that issue has now acquired a valid basis.
Carrier has conclusively shown herein the claim is unwarranted and totally lacking in merit, and if not dismissed for lack of proper notice to other interested parties, Carrier asks that it be denied.
OPINION OF BOARD: Clerks, not covered by the Telegraphers' Agreement, telephoned Agents and other Clerks and gave them serial numbers of various types of bills of lading. The following are samples of such messages:
When the Agent-Telegrapher at Gilbert phoned Phoenix or the Clerk at Weed phoned Redding identifying the type of bill of lading for which a serial number was desired, the Clerk at Phoenix or at Redding would furnish such number. 12614--42 754
On June 26, 1959, Petitioner's Local Chairman wrote to Carrier's Superintendent, in part, as follows:
"As it is a requisite in the Southern Pacific Company's system of accounting to inscribe on each freight bill, waybill, misc. charge bill, demurrage bill, prepaid freight bills, etc., for a permanent record, and also for permanent identification purposes, it cannot be denied that these messages which are telephoned from the Phoenix freight house containing the identification numbers are not messages of record."
In the course of handling the claims on the property, Carrier's Superintendent wrote to Petitioner's General Chairman on August 28, 1959 and on August 31, 1959, in part, as follows:
On the basis of the record, we conclude that the claims are not messages of record. They do not involve the movement of trains or the safety of persons and property.
Since they are not messages of record, Petitioner is obliged to prove that this type of communication is work which belongs exclusively to employes covered by the Telegraphers' Agreement. This Petitioner has failed to do.
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