If there is any difference in the methods used in that case, with respect to delivery of materials and supplies to the point of usage and those subject of this dispute, Carrier submits that it is not apparent. This is purely a case where Petitioner is returning to this Division an issue which has long since been settled in the hope that this Division will reverse its previous holding.
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: The claim arises from changes made by Carrier in the physical characteristics and mode of operation of its Car Repair Yard at Roseville, California in June 1959. This involved the concentration of repair functions to a roofed-over area about two car-lengths long. This area is equipped with embedded hydraulic jacks located at this end of the three half-mile-long tracks and with other specially designed equipment for expeditious removal of defective parts from cars and their replacement by new parts.
This so-called "one-spot car repair facility" permits work to be done at the same time on three cars under the same roof. Prior to the "one-spot car repair system," car repairs were made throughout the Car Repair Yard and materials necessary to make the repairs were located at various points throughout the Yard. These materials were transported to point of use by Stores Department employes. With the construction of the new Car Repair facilities, materials needed for car repairs were concentrated adjacent to the repair shed at or very close to the roofed-over area.
In respect to the claims made concerning the denial to Claimants of work involved in the handling and transporting of wheels, the record does not sustain either Petitioner's essential position, nor all of the Carrier's defense. We are not persuaded that in explicit respect to handling the wheels the change from the old location of wheel tracks and Rip tracks at Jennings Rip involved a substantial physical reorganization, dictating a distribution of employes and assignments different from those which are now required in the one-spot facility. In both cases the wheel tracks were and now are adjacent to the Rip tracks; in both cases wheels had to be brought to the wheel tracks and 12940--31 617
moved therefrom to the car being repaired and the bad-order wheels had to be moved back to the nearby wheel storage track and eventually to the wheel car.
The operation has been made more efficient by accomplishing movement of wheels directly from wheel car to storage tracks instead of in two movements as heretofore. But this appears to have benefited Stores Department employes rather than to have deprived them of work, inasmuch as the single operation is now done by Stores employes, whereas part of it was previously done by Mechanical Department forces at the Jennings Rip location.
At the same time, there has been no showing by Petitioner that the shifting of some tasks from Mechanical employes to Store employes and vice versa in the handling of wheels has been violative of Petitioner's Agreement rights or caused Claimants to be adversely affected. On the determinative and controlling question of past practices, there is no showing that the particular segments of work which have here been reshuffled have been exclusively the customary work of the Claimants. As we interpret the concept of exclusivity under a general Scope Rule such as this Agreement contains, the measurements of practice and custom cannot be focused on relatively small functional areas which have been and are as here, validly subject to a certain amount of overlapping and interchange within their overall job characteristics.
When repairs were made at the old Jennings Rip facility, items such as brake beams, couplers, brake shoes and pipe fittings were unloaded from cars by Stores Department employes using a lift truck and then placed in storage areas as far away as 250 to 300 feet from the Rip tracks. As the material was required for repairs to a car, it was delivered from the storage area to the car by Stores Department employes using a lift truck or chore boy.
By use of the one-spot car facility, these parts are delivered by van or car to this point and there placed on concrete platforms at points quite close to the repair shed and repair tracks. As each item is required for repair to a car, it is moved from the nearby storage area directly to the car by Mechanical Department employes using lift truck or mobile crane.
Obviously, in the strictest literal sense, "deliveries," from an accumu= lation point to the car being repaired, which were formerly the work of Stores employer are now being made by Mechanical employes. But looking more closely c,.t the facts, the Mechanical Department employe is not doing transporting in the same functional sense as the Stores employe formerly had. As part of a more efficient process, the management has arranged for these parts to be more immediately at hand for the Mechanical employe.
The transporting of the item immediately being put to use for the short distance from the accumulation point to the point of repair cannot reasonably be described as a usurpation of the work which had been done by Stores employes when they had moved these items the much greater distance from the storage area to the repair point. Under the new arrangement, these items may properly be regarded as having passed into the possession of the Mechanical employes within close contiguity to their work at the stockpile point, their work of repair properly encompassing the minimal and incidental transportation of each single item over a small area for specific immediate use. 12946-32 glg
We thus find that Stores employes' work has been eliminated, but it is the resultant of a physical change in the method of operation, rather than of the transfer of a static job from one group to another. It cannot be denied that having at hand ready stockpiles for immediate use of Mechanical employes is a valid and permissible management act in the interests of greater efficiency. One of the fruits of this change has been the elimination of the need for maintaining a central storage facility apart from the locale of actual shop operation and of the need to make transfers from such point to the shop over a substantial distance.
Carrier is entitled to all the benefits of this improvement in efficiency, -the saving of time, space and motion. We described one such situation in Award 3216 as follows:
In Award 3431, which involved the present parties and an issue also concerning the use of stockpiles at the points of utilization, we stated:
In the instant matter, a differentiation is argued from Award 3431, in that Petitioner contends that the telescoping of the supply function with the repair function has, in fact, deprived employes of work falling within the scope of their Agreement. The use of lift trucks and chore boys by Stores employes it is averred, has been supplanted by the use of the same mechanisms for the same purpose by Mechanical employes. But the change in the physical setup and in the nature of the handling and transportation operation, makes the present link between the shop site stockpiles and the repair job something quite different from the old link between a sequestered Stores building and storage pile on the one hand and the Jennings Rip repair tracks .some distance away.
In short, Petitioner is not able to show that this work has been customarily and traditionally the exclusive assignment of Stores employes for the simple reason that this work did not exist before in quite this form. In general terms, however, it has not been shown by Petitioner that some withinshop short movement transportation tasks to the point of maintenance repair and installation activity had not in fact been performed by the operating mechanics, so that some overlapping of this stores and transporting function necessarily occurred. This extracts from Petitioner's position the vital element of exclusivity of past practice and causes its claim to fall. 12940-33 6 1 !9
Petitioner points out that in the instant situation the staff of Stores employes has now been reduced by six. But it is not possible to find from the record that the reduction is explicitly attributable to the transfer of the work from these employes to others, partly for the reason already given above,-i.e., the work now done cannot fairly be described as the work formerly done. Our decision, nevertheless, is not dependent on the question of whether employes were eliminated, but rather on whether work proven to be theirs exclusively by custom, tradition and history, has been transferred to others.
Carrier has pointed out that the total work force engaged in various operations in connection with the repairing of cars at the location here involved, has been reduced from 160 to 55 employes. Carrier quite readily admits that its purpose is erecting this facility and in reorganizing operations thereof, has been to reduce costs, including labor costs. We cannot find this to be a censurable purpose and have on the contrary, supported in many Awards the presumption that Carriers are under the obligation to operate their businesses in an efficient and economical manner, and have upheld them in so doing when their actions did not trespass upon the rights of employes granted in the respective agreements. We do not find that such trespass has been proven here.
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