NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY
(Lake Region)
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Transportation-Communication Division, BRAC, on the Norfolk and Western Railroad (Lake Region), that:
The Agreement between the parties effective January 1, 1959, as amended and supplemented, is on file with your Board, and by this reference is made a part hereof. Originally, the Agreement was entered into between the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad and its employes on the Nickel Plate, Lake Erie and Western, and Clover Leaf Districts represented by The Order of Railroad Telegraphers.
Subsequent thereto, the Carrier merged with the Norfolk and Western Railway, who assumed all obligations as though an original party to the Agreement as a condition thereof, and the Organization merged with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks, becoming the T-C Division. The effectiveness of the Agreement has been maintained throughout.
The claim was timely presented, progressed on the property, including conference with highest officer designated by Carrier to receive appeals, and remained declined. The Employes, therefore, appeal to your Honorable Board for adjudication.
OPINION OF BOARD: The basic facts are not in dispute. On the dates in the claims, an agent or clerk at Bloomington, Illinois, telephoned yard assignment reports to the operator in "Z" Office at Muncie, Indiana. There are no telegraphers stationed at Bloomington, Illinois. All telegraph work is performed by GM&0 operators at Dean Tower, about one mile west of the agent's office.
This Yard Assignment Report was new. Effective January 1, 1968, a report of the following information was required:
Employes contend that since the information was coded by letter, it is a "telegraphic report, the transmission of which, by telephone in lieu of telegraph, is reserved to telegraphers by their agreement" It is doubtful that the mere identification of information by an alphabetical letter constitutes a telegraphic message which by its very nature is reserved exclusively to telegraphers. What constitutes a telegraphic message, the transmission of which is reserved exclusively to telegraphers depends upon the nature and purpose of the message, and not whether or not it is coded and/or not whether
it is transmitted by telegraph or by telephone. A report which is a message of record, whether transmitted by telephone or telegraph, is a transmission belonging exclusively to telegraphers. Conversely, if it is not a message of record, telegraphers have no such exclusivity.
Employes have not established by competent evidence that the Scope Rule, or any other rule in the Agreement, reserves to the telegraphers the exclusive right to handle yard assignment reports. Nor is there any evidence in the record that this work has been reserved to them by history, custom and tradition.
The yard assignment reports are not messages of record. They do not affect the operation of trains, nor do they affect the safety of persons and property. Since they are not messages of record, they are not communications the transmission of which are exclusively reserved to telegraphers.
Upon the whole record, the Board concludes that there is no merit to the claims.
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