THIRD DIVISION
(Supplemental)
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the Chicago and North Western Railway Company that:
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: The work at issue in this dispute involves the installation and maintenance of a mechanical car retarder in the car retarder system of this Carrier located at its Proviso, Illinois, classification yard. The car retarder system at Proviso Yard, prior to the installation of the mechanical car retarder, consisted of 30 automatic car retarders and other generally recognized signal apparatus such as power switches, signals, relays, storage battery, air compressors, control machines, etc. on a track layout of 64 tracks.
The automatic car retarders at Proviso Yard are located at various intervals along the lead tracks and their function is to retard the speed of the freight cars which are released at the top of the hump to be switched automatically to the various tracks in the classification yard.
All work in connection with the installation and maintenance of the Proviso Yard car retarder system heretofore has been performed by signal employes under the Scope Rule of the Signalmen's Agreement.
About June of 1959, the Carrier purchased a mechanical car retarder for use in its car retarder system at Proviso and installed it at the far end of track 42. The purpose of the mechanical car retarder was to retard the freight cars which were nearing the end of the classification track. The mechanical car retarder provided the last retarding action for freight cars moving by gravity through the classification yard.
ignoring in its entirety the provisions of the agreement which limit the application of the agreement to the "construction, repairing, renewing, replacing, reconditioning, and maintenance of signals or signal systems" and "appurtenances."
The carrier submits that the claim in the instant case is not supported by the provisions of the controlling agreement and for that reason must of necessity be denied in its entirety.
OPINION OF BOARD: This claim involves the installation and maintenance of a device which is called a Racor Mechanical Car Retarder.
There is some dispute as to the name Car Retarder, used by the manufacturer, as being misleading. We hold that it is the function of the equipment which controls, and not an arbitrary name attached to it by the company. The record is clear that the function of this device is to retard the cars and therefore the name itself does not appear to be erroneous or misleading. This particular device is further found in this particular case to be a part of the over-all operation in the Car Retarder Yard.
The case actually hinges on an interpretation of the scope rule. The particular language involved is as follows:
It is urged by the employes that this language says, in fact, that a car retarder system is a signal system. The Carrier contends that the car retarder system must be an appurtenance to a signal system in order to be so construed. We are of the opinion that this language is clear and unambiguous, and that it clearly defines a car retarder system as a signal system per se.
A companion claim has been called to our attention, the same being Award No. 12925. In that case, the Board held "the Petitioner has the burden of proving his case, but we can find no evidence in this record of probative value, which would lead us to any conclusion other than that these devices are stoppers, not retarders." Therefore, we do not feel that it is necessary to further distinguish these cases since the fundamental principle involved is totally different. In the instant case we believe the device to be a retarder and not a stopper.
We call attention to Paragraph B of the claim as submitted by the Brotherhood, "the installation and maintenance of the car retarder be assigned to employes covered by the Signalmen's Agreement". Therefore, it is the decision of this Board that the future installation and maintenance of the type of Car Retarder involved in this claim is hereby declared to properly be assigned to employes covered by the Signalmen's Agreement. 12968-13 15FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, after giving
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
CARRIER MEMBERS' DISSENT TO AWARD 12968
DOCKET SG-12253
The ruling that the involved mechanical device is a car retarder within the purview of the Signalmen's Scope Rule is manifestly erroneous. This device functions independently of the traditional, electrically-controlled car retarders; it merely utilizes the force of gravity to bring a car to a complete stop; it performs precisely the same car stopping function that has been traditionally performed by mechanical skates which have been handled and maintained by employes other than Signalmen. In our opinion, the years of agreement of all concerned that the mechanical skates were merely car stoppers and not part of the car retarder system logically come to the conclusion that the independently-operated mechanical device which took over the function of the skates is also a car stopper and not a part of the car retarder system.
In Award 12925 we held that a similar device was not a car retarder, and that ruling should have been followed in this case.