THIRD DIVISION
(Supplemental)
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood that:
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: Each of the claimants have established and hold seniority as Track Laborers in excess of sixty (60) calendar days in accordance with Agreement rules. Each claimant is an hourly rated employe.
Each claimant was assigned to and worked with Section Gang No. 40, East Point, Georgia, until its abolishment on August 31, 1961.
Each claimant performed more than eleven (11) days of compensated service in the thirty (30) calendar days immediately preceding the Labor Day holiday.
Each claimant was available for service on the workdays immediately preceding and following the subject holiday.
The Carrier failed and refused to allow each claimant eight (8) hours' pay at his pro rata rate for Labor Day, September 4, 1961.
The Agreement in effect between the two parties to this dispute dated September 1, 1949, together with supplements, amendments and intrepretations thereto is by reference made a part of this Statement of Facts.
Mr. Collins wrote General Chairman Padgett under date of May 11, 1962, the following letter:
General Chairman Padgett acknowledged receipt per his letter of May 4, 1962.
The next communication of record is a letter dated January 11, 1963, from Mr. H. C. Crotty, President, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, to Mr. S. H. Schulty, Executive Secretary of the Third Division, National Railroad Adjustment Board, Chicago, Illinois, giving notice of intent to appeal this claim to the Board for adjudication.
The Petitioners have failed in all handlings on the property to cite a rule, interpretation or practice which gives them what they are here demanding. Not knowing of any rule, interpretation or practice that has been violated by the Carrier, the demands of the Petitioners have been denied at each and every stage of handling on the property. The claim has no semblance of merit.
The rules and working conditions agreement between the Central of Georgia Railway Company and its employes represented by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes is effective September 1, 1949, as amended. Copies are on file with your Board, and the agreement, as amended, is hereby made a part of this dispute as though reproduced herein word for word.
OPINION OF BOARD: This claim arises under the August 19, 1960 Agreement, Article III-Holidays, which amended, effective July 1, 1960, the November 5, 1954 Agreement (National Agreement of August 21, 1954) on the same subject. We are specifically concerned with Section 3 of Article III of the 1960 Agreement which provides holiday pay for "other than regularly assigned employes."
The facts of this case are not disputed. On Thursday, August 3.1, 1961, Claimants, who were regularly assigned Track Laborers on Section 40, East Point, Georgia, were furloughed by the direction of the Carrier, and none performed service on the last workday immediately preceding the September 4, 1961 Labor Day holiday, or on the first workday immediately following the holiday. Since there is no disagreement about the fact that these claimants were furloughed and/or laid off at Carrier's direction and that the lay-off period extended beyond the holiday, claimants are considered as "other than regularly assigned employes."
To be entitled to holiday pay in this category, claimants must meet the qualifying requirements of Article III of the August 19, 1960 Agreement applicable to "other than regularly assigned employes."
The record before us shows that each claimant held seniority or continuous service of sixty days or more and had compensation credited to eleven
(11) or more days during the thirty (30) calendar days immediately preceding the holiday. There then remains the satisfying of one or the other of the following conditions:
It is evident from the record that Claimants performed no service on the workday immediately preceding the Labor Day holiday nor the first workday immediately following the holiday solely because they had been furloughed by the direction of the Carrier. Claimants, then, did not lay off of their own accord. Carrier has not shown or alleged that it needed Claimants' services on such days, or that any of them failed to respond to a call, pursuant to the rules of the applicable agreement, for service on such days.
The foregoing involves the identical question that this Board fully discussed and answered in our Awards 14364, 14365 (Lynch), 14390 (Zumas), 14431 (Rambo) and Awards 14515 through 14524 (Brown). What we said and held therein is applicable and controlling here.
Carrier contends that Claimants are not entitled to holiday pay because each was a furloughed employe and, as such, failed to comply with Section 2, Article IV of the November 5, 1954 Agreement (August 21, 1954 Agreement) by filing their names and addresses indicating their availability for service within the meaning of Subsection (ii) of Section 3 of the August 19, 1960 Agreement. "Available" is defined in the "Note" under Subsection (ii) to mean that "an employe is available unless he lays off of his own accord or does not respond to a call, pursuant to the rules of the applicable agreement, for service." The parties are in sharp disagreement as to which are the "rules of the applicable agreement." Carrier urges that Article IV of the November 5, 1964 Agreement (August 21, 1954 Agreement) is the intended rule of the "applicable agreement." The Organization, on behalf of the Claimants, points out the undisputed fact that neither the "Note" nor any portion of Article III of the August 1960 Agreement implies that Article IV of the 1954 Agreement is to be the controlling rule in determining whether or not furloughed employes are entitled to holiday payment. It would have been a simple matter, had the parties to this Agreement desired Article IV of the 1904 Agreement to have been a determining factor, to have clearly stated so in their definition of "available" set out in the "Note" of Section 3, Article III of the 1960 Agreement. They did not.
We find that there is no ambiguity in the language of Article III or the "Note" in Section 3. It clearly interprets the meaning of "available", and in view of this Board's having previously decided the specific issue in Awards 14625 and 14626 (Engelstcin), we think it unnecessary to belabor the point any further.
In view of what we have said, we find that all the above-cited Awards are applicable and controlling herein; therefore, this claim is sustained.