STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Transportation-Communication Division, BRAC, on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, that:
The Agreement between the parties effective August 1, 1947, as amended and supplemented, is on file with your Board and by this reference is made a part hereof.
Claim was timely presented, progressed, including conference with highest officer designated by the Carrier to receive appeals, and has remained declined. The employes, therefore, appeal to your Honorable Board for adjudication.
The claim arose when the Conductor of Train No. 75 made request to the telegrapher on duty at Caldwell, Kansas, to secure a message from the Train Dispatcher authorizing the servicings of the caboose with ice and drinking water at that station. Such authority is necessary to support the time slip of the brakeman (flagman), who is entitled to three hours extra pay for assisting the conductor in servicing the caboose for work performed outside the brakeman's class of service.
OPINION OF BOARD: The essential facts are not in dispute. On the date in the claim, Claimant Telegrapher was directed to assist the conductor of a through freight train in supplying ice and drinking water to the caboose of that train.
In support of the Claim, Petitioner contends that a prima facie case was made out on the property which the Carrier did not refute. Carrier did refute the allegation that the act complained of violated Rule 40(a) of the Agreement, which reads:
After the part`es met in conference on December 4, 1968, Carrier's highest appeals officer declined the claim, and on December 17, 1968 wrote the General Chairman, in part, as follows:
Caldwell, Kansas was, on the date of the claim, a one man telegrapher station on each of three shifts. No clerical posit'ons existed on any of those three shifts. Under Rule 40(a) work normally performed by telegraphers may include "clerical" duties. When clerical employes were assigned to Caldwell prior to May 17, 1958, they were required to and they did assist the train crew in supplying ice and drinking water to the caboose. This was part of their required duties as employes represented by the Clerks and as such was covered in the Scope Rule of that Agreement.
Petitioner attempts to distinguish between "clerical work" and "clerks' work" by observing that carrying ice and water is truly "clerks' work" and not "clerical work" as provided in Rule 40(a). This is a narrow and perhaps
specious distinction. In a one Agent station all communication and clerical work generally belongs to the assigned Telegrapher. And this includes all the duties that an employe covered by the Clerks' Agreement does and has the right to perform. Those duties are not confined to paper work or to the operation of office machines. For example, Clerks may handle baggage. Under Rule 40(a) telegraphers may also do so when no clerks are assigned. This is particularly true, as here, where the time spent in supplying ice and water is an infinitesimal part of the work of the Telegrapher and is only incidental to the major duties of the position.
For all these reasons, the Board concludes that there is no merit to the claim.
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