NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY
(Lake Region)
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood that:
(1) The discipline imposed upon Mr. Eusebio Lopez and Mr. Louis Eskridge because of alleged responsibility for a motor car - automobile collision on August 26, 1963, was without just and sufficient cause and on the basis of unproven charges. (Carrier's Files 30-20-107 and 30-20-108).
(2) The charges against Claimants Eusebio Lopez and Louis Eskridge shall be stricken from the record; they shall be reinstated to the position from which each was removed; they shall each be allowed payment for the assigned working hours lost, less any earnings in the service of the company; Claimant Eskridge's seniority as an Assistant Foreman and as a Motor Car Operator shall be restored and that Claimant Lopez's seniority as a Foreman and as an Assistant Foreman shall be restored (Rule 22-e).
OPINION OF BOARD: It is admitted that relative to this claim no conference was held on the property. Because of this, Carrier challenges this Board's jurisdiction.
The great weight of precedent holds that a conference, on the property, between the parties, to seek to settle a dispute, is a jursidictional prerequisite to submission of a dispute to this Board. Award No. 13721 and Awards cited therein. Petitioner argues that those Awards are not applicable to discipline cases which are handled in accord with a procedure prescribed in the Agreement. We find the precedent Awards apply regardless of the nature of the dispute, for as we said in Award No. 13721:
The only qualification is that a party who by actions or nonfeasance evades a conference on the property is estopped from raising a jurisdictional issue