STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood that:
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: Mr. R. A. Williams was regularly assigned to a welder's position with headquarters at Dyersburg, Tennessee, although he resided at Fowlkes, Tennessee. On Friday, July 6, 1962, his position was abolished. There were no junior welders employed on the Tennessee Division whom Mr. Williams could displace. However, he held seniority as a section laborer as of July 10, 1950, on his home seniority district, and he intended to immediately displace a junior section laborer employed near his home. Before Mr. Williams could displace, he was instructed on July 7, 1962, to report to Memphis, Tennessee, for the purpose of relieving vacationing Welder Helper Sanders, who was a helper to Welder J. B. Springs. Mr. Williams relieved on said position on July 9, 1962. On Tuesday, July 10, 1962, Welder Brockwell displaced Welder J. B. Springs, and then immediately laid off to apply for his annuity. Mr. Williams was then directed to fill the vacancy in this welder's position on July 10, 11, 12 and 13, 1962. On July 16, 1962, a combination Welder's position was bulletined at Dyersburg, and Mr. Williams was assigned to fill that position pending award. He was subsequently awarded this position at Dyersburg.
This Board in its Award No. 7305, Maintenance of Way Employes v. the joint Texas Division of Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad CompanyFort Worth and Denver Railway Company, interpreted a rule similar to that here involved and stated:
In the two claims before the Board, the employes accepted temporary assignments with headquarters at Memphis, Tennessee, and worked at that location on each of the claim dates. It follows that such employes are not entitled to such expenses under Rule 39 (a) for the simple reason they were not required to stay away from their regular assigned headquarters overnight.
The company has shown that the employes' claim before the Board is without contractual basis because they were displaced from regular assigned bulletin positions and were not entitled to expenses while filling temporary assignments. It has shown that the claims are invalid because (1) the claimants were displaced from their bulletined positions as result of a force reduction and were unable to displace junior employes in the same class because there were none working as welder or welder helper, (2) when they accepted temporary work at Memphis, they assumed the headquarters point of the position to which assigned, (3) they were not required to stay away from their regular assigned headquarters overnight and, therefore, are not entitled to expenses under Rule 39 (a).
The claim is entirely without contractual basis, and it should be denied in its entirety.
OPINION OF BOARD: This claim involves the interpretation and application of Rule 39, paragraph (1) of the Agreement which in relevant part provides:
Irrespective of the differing interpretations placed on the Rule by the parties, both sides are in agreement that for the Rule to apply at all the affected employe must have a "regular assigned headquarters" to begin with. In other words, for the rule to come into operation, the temporary assignment in question must be taking the employe away overnight from such headquarters. It follows that a lack of this factor would require dismissal of a claim.
Petitioner contends that this factor is satisfied in the situation where the employe on temporary assignment has been displaced from his regular job or that job has been abolished, so long as his seniority rights would entitle him to displace a junior employe at the regularly assigned headquarters. But concedely even if this construction of the Rule were adopted and applied in this case the claim of employe Williams (Items 2 and 4 above) 13846-19 228
would have to be dismissed. The undisputed facts in this record are that this employe, whose regular job had been earlier abolished, had no one junior in the service at his former headquarters whom he could displace. Accordingly, Items 2 and 4 of the claim are denied.
The Carrier's interpretation of the Rule is that employes displaced from their regular positions and who thereafter fill temporary assignments take the headquarters of the temporary position worked. In this view the fact that the affected employe had seniority rights which might have allowed him to displace a junior employe at the headquarters of his former regular .job are irrelevant to the Rule in issue; his former headquarters are replaced by those of his given temporary assignment.
While the Petitioner's interpretation of the Rule finds some support in the past precedents of this Division (see, e .g., Awards 5293, 6252), the proof in the claim of employe Golden (Items 1 and 3) does not show that his temporary assignment ever took him away from his "regular assigned headquarters" within the meaning of the Rule. According to Petitioner's ex parts submission, this Claimant "was displaced from a regularly assigned welder's position in Gang 306 on July 9, 1962." (Emphasis ours.) The "regular assigned headquarters" of this Gang was in Memphis, Tennessee. it remains that when this Claimant returned to work after his vacation from ,July 9 to 21, 1962; he immediately went back to the same position on thrs Gang from which he had been displaced. And since August 21, 1962, he has held this job on a permanent basis, rather than a temporary one as before. The situs of the "regular assigned headquarters" of this Gang remained in Memphis, Tennessee, during all the time in question. It is clear, therefore, that this Claimant was not required to stay away from his "regular assigned headquarters." Items 1 and 3 of the Claim are accordingly denied.
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