STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Transportation-Communication Employees Union on the Missouri Pacific Railroad (Gulf District), that:
EMPLOYES' STATEMENT OF FACTS: The agent-telegrapher position at DeQuincy, Louisiana had been assigned for years the duty of handling the Railway Express and the rate of pay for the position was fixed in conformity with the fact that the Railway Express through commissions paid part of the agent's salary for the total operation of the agency. On March 12, 1965 the Missouri Pacific Railroad acting alone removed the express commissions from the agent-telegrapher's position and transferred the express work to the agent-telegrapher of the Kansas City Southern Railway in the same city across the town of the Missouri Pacific station. The handling of this express had been a function of the agent's position since the inception of this railroad, more than sixty years before. The railroad did not at any time contact the Organization toward the disposition of this matter but acted unilaterally. When the express commissions were discontinued at the agent-telegrapher's position at DeQuincy, Louisiana, reducing the average monthly compensation, the Employees filed claim for an increase in the agent-telegrapher's salary to the equivalent of the express commissions annually handled at this station, which are approximately $500.00 per year. The claim was handled thru the highest officer and declined by him. The claim is not properly before your Board for adjudication.
OPINION OP BOARD: Effective March 10, 1965, Carrier discontinued operations of two passenger trains between Houston and New Orleans. Due to this discontinuance, the Railway Express Agency discontinued using Carrier's DeQuincy, Louisiana, facility for express traffic. The Agent-Telegrapher, the instant Claimant lost the commissions he had been used to receiving for handling this traffic heretofore.
The provision of the Agreement relied upon by Employes is set forth below:
After a thorough examination of the Agreement, the Transcript, and the awards cited by both parties, this Board must deny this claim for the following reasons:
1) The Employes' claim is based on a request to make up the difference in lost commissions by a salary increase. The Agreement, however, calls for a "prompt adjustment" in consonance with the rate of pay for "similar positions." This Board finds that Employes did not meet their burden of proof by showing that other agent-telegraphers were making approximately $500.00 more per year. Nor did Employes show that Carrier acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner by looking at the particular agent-telegrapher positions to which they looked to ascertain that the rate of pay at DeQuincy, even without express commissions, was not out of line.
2) This Board has previously stated, and herein reaffirms, that we can not involve ourselves in rate making or wage setting, absent a capricious or arbitrary violation of the Agreement. (Awards 2682, 5093, 6803, 7922, and 8201.
3) Rule 29 (a) does not provide for the computation of salary adjustm<·.nt on the basis of express commissions lost, as requested in Employes' statement of claim. In so holding, we follow Awards 6785 and 7592.