NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
PARTIES TO DISPUTE:
BROTHERHOOD OF RAILWAY AND STEAMSHIP CLERKS,
FREIGHT HANDLERS, EXPRESS AND STATION EMPLOYES
RAILWAY EXPRESS AGENCY, INC.
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the District Committee of the
Brotherhood (GLX-148) that:
(a) The Agreement Governing Hours of Service and Working
Conditions between REA Express and the Brotherhood of Railway
and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employee, effective September 1, 1949, was violated at the Dearborn
Express Terminal, 836 South Federal Street, and General Office Building, 612 South Clinton Street, Chicago, Illinois, February 20, 1962 and
on subsequent dates in permitting individuals employed by the Thomas
Paper Company to perform work incident to the removal of old
clerical records;
(b) The work shall be restored to employes whose names appear
on the Seniority Roster covering those employed in the Auditor of
Disbursements office at Chicago, Illinois and furloughed employes
whose seniority rights were violated-in the order of availabilitybe compensated for salary and earnings loss sustained retroactive to
and including February 20, 1962; and
(c) Carrier shall be required to make a joint check of the payroll
records covering employes in the Auditor of Disbursements office to
ascertain the names of employes involved together with amount of
reparation due each employe affected.
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS:
Work incident to the removal
and destruction of old records has been performed by employes with seniority
rights on the roster maintained for those employed in the Auditor of Disbursements office covering the period of contractual relations between the parties
beginning February 15, 1920. Stated differently the work as identified in the
immediate preceding sentence constituted a part of the job content or duties
of positions occupied by employee-in the Auditor of Disbursements officerated at $403.51 per month and assigned to employee involved as specified;
e.g., on Bulletin No. 16 dated February 12, 1962. (Exhibit A.)
3. Since crates in which records could be dumped, were not
furnished by the purchaser, which was his prerogative, the
work formerly performed by our employes disappeared.
4. Group 40, employe R. C. Clark, was present during the baling
and removal processes, checking or tallying records involved
in the purchase.
5. In subsequent instances, where the purchaser of vintage
records did supply crates in which records involved were to
be packed, our employes continued to do such packing.
In view of the foregoing Mr. Larsen's declination must be and is
sustained."
OPINION OF BOARD:
On eight days in February and March 1962,
employes of Thomas Paper Company removed IBM cards from shelves of
RE A's Disbursements Department (Dearborn Express Terminal and South
Clinton St.) in Chicago. Mr. R. C. Clark, an REA employe whose bulletined
duties included the moving, storing and handling of records for destruction,
was assigned to insure that only the proper records were removed. The Paper
Company provided four men on February 20, 3 on March 14, 3 on March 15,
and 2 on March 20, 22, 23, 26 and 29. The record does not reveal how many hours
these men worked.
The actual work consisted of removing the cards from shelves, baling
them, and placing them on skids. The cards were stacked in a manner and to a
height specified by the Paper Company. A variation of a criss-cross pattern
was used in stacking so they would not give or sway in the course of shipment.
This was not the first time REA had disposed of outdated records by
selling them to purchasers of old paper. In the past, however, a different procedure had been followed. Purchasers had supplied large crates, into which
R E A employes had dumped the cards, placed the crates on four-wheel trucks
and then trucked the crates to a freight elevator.
Petitioner contends, in effect, that any work connected with procuring
records from storage spaces or moving, storing and handling records for destruction, belongs to R E A employes covered by the Clerks' Agreement. We
are dealing here, however, with a special kind of situation in which R EA has
sold the IBM cards from the shelf as scrap and, consequently, is no longer
their owner. The purchaser has a right to determine how he wants his purchases to be handled. If he is content to supply REA with crates and have
the cards just thrown in, that is his prerogative. If he is satisfied to have
R E A men do this work, that again is his privilege. But, since the loose cards
are his property, following the sale, the purchaser may also elect to use his
own employes to pack and remove them in a prescribed manner. Petitioner's
right to the work does not extend beyond the point where a purchaser assumes
title. There is nothing in Petitioner's Agreement which insures that purchasers
will always handle their scrap in a certain way. It may well be that REA
employes are entitled to do the handling and moving whenever such work is
not performed by employes of a purchaser. But it has no justifiable claim to
do work on a purchaser's property which the purchaser wants to do himself.
These findings are consistent with prior Board rulings regarding similar
situations. See Awards 10826, 9580, 13857, among others. The claim must be
denied.
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FINDINGS:
The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole
record and all the evidence, finds and holds:
That the parties waived oral hearing;
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
That the
Agreement was not violated.
AWARD
Claim
denied.
NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
By Order of THIRD DIVISION
ATTEST: S. H. Schulty
Executive Secretary
Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 12th day of May 1966.
Keenan Printing Co., Chicago, Ill. Printed in U.S.A.
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