SOUTHERN PACIFIC TRANSPORTATION COMPANY
(Pacific Lines)
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the Southern Pacific Company that:
formed by Tucson Division employes at the east end of Yuma Yard (East Yard) on those dates.
By letter dated December 26, 1968, Carrier's Division Superintendent denied the claim. By letter dated January 17, 1969 (Carrier's Exhibit D), Petitioner's Local Chairman gave notice that the claim would be appealed.
By letter dated January 21, 1969 (Carrier's Exhibit E), Petitioner's General Chairman appealed the claim in behalf of claimants for September 16, 17 and 18, 1968 (claim for September 13, 1968, was abandoned), to Carrier's Assistant Manager of Personnel and by letter dated April 16, 1969 (Carrier's Exhibit F), the latter denied the claim.
By letter dated April 23, 1969 (Carrier's Exhibit G), Petitioner's General Chairman advised that Carrier's denial of the claim was not acceptable.
OPINION OF BOARD: Rule 35 of the Agreement between the parties restricts seniority rights of employes to the territory over which one superintendent has jurisdiction. To cover certain situations the parties entered into a Memorandum Agreement dated October 31, 1960 which agreement permitted Tucson Division employes to perform work on the Los Angeles Division to the extent that they may "maintain, test and repair the signal equipment in service at end of double track . . . ."
On the dates in question the Carrier used a foreman and two signal maintainers from the Tucson Division Seniority District to "rearrange the track circuit identified as K-T-1, adding to it track circuit arrangement identified as 11-T-2-R." The work was performed on the Los Angeles Seniority District in an area covered by the October 31, 1960 Agreement.
The sole question this Board must determine is whether the above described work could properly be called maintaining, testing or repairing signal equipment so as to bring the use of Tucson Division employes within the exception of the Memorandum Agreement.
The Agreement refers to maintaining, testing and repairing signal equipment. In the case at Bar the defect was in the track circuit arrangement. This was an engineering defect requiring the rearrangement of an existing track circuit and the addition of another. We are of the opinion that the work which is the subject of this dispute does not fall within the exception of the Memorandum Agreement of October 31, 1960.
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;