( Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employes PARTIES TO DISPUTE:

STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood (GL-7202)

1. The Carrier violated the National Vacation Agreement when it utiiized the services oz regular employes for vacation relief and required them to work two jobs, the vacationer's job and their own.

 2. Claimants shall be compensated an additional day's pay, at the applicable pro rata rate of their regularly assigned positions as follows-

 A. Wolf and W. Feehan June? to 11, 1971; P. Powers June 7 to il, 1971 and July 6 to 9, 1971 and R. Altenburg June 14 to 18, 1971 and July 26 to 30, 1971.

 OPINION OF BOARD: The Organization alleges that the Carrier violated the National
 Vacation Agreement of December 21, 1941 by utilizing the services of regular employees for vacat and although the circumstances in each case vary the issues are the same. Individual claims were fil
More specifically Claimants allege violation of the Agreement when Carrier took them from their regularly assigned positions and moved them to vacationers' positio regular work, which required them to work overtime. They maintain Carrier should have furnished vacation relief employees. This is the basis of their claim and they rely in part on the official interpretation of the first sentence of Article 6 of the National Vacation Agreement by Referee Morse.



                  Docket Number CL-20034


        Referee Morse said cf the first aentence:


        "(1) The sentence obligates the carriers to provide relief workers to perform the work of an employee while he is on vacation if his work is of such a n remaining on the job or of the employee when he returns from his vacation, It does not mean that in every instance when an employee goes on a vacation the carrier must assign someone to do the work which the employee would otherwise have done had he not gone on his vacation."


Carrier contends that the claim should be dismissed on the grounds that the claim presented to the Board is not the same claim handled on the property and therefore is variance in the claims originally presented and the one now before the Board, we do not feel this has caused Carrier to be misled as to the issue being adjudicated here. Carrier'
The claims were declined by Carrier on the general grounds of past practice; that it is impractical to establish vacation relief assignments in the Comptroller's Office, and that it is permissible under the Vacation Agreement to fill the position of the vacationer with a clerk from another position.

 We agree that in some instances it is permissible under the Agreement to fill the position of a vacationer with a clerk from another position. However, we do not feel it could have been successfully trained to perform the necessary work of these vacationing employees.

 The question before the Board is whether or not Carrier violated the Vacation Agreement. Based on the provisions of Article 6 of the Agreement, and on the interpretation of Referee Morse of a portion of Article 6, and on other previous Awards, and on the holding in Special Board of Adjustment No. 167, Award No. 5, wherein it held:

        "However light the burden, not more than the equivalent of 25 percent of the work load of a vacationing employee may be distributed among his fellow employees wit relief worker."


we are of the opinion that the Carrier did violate the National Vacation Agreement of December 2
                Axard Number 19330 Page 3

                Docket Number CL-20034


        FII;D:1»S: The TLird Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and I:olds:


        That the parties waived oral hearing;


that the Carrier and tt:c cmaloyes involved in this dispute are respectively Carrier ^un d E=ploycs within the meaning of the Railw:·y Labor Act, as approved junc 21, 1931;

 That this Division of the Ad_u5tw nt Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein.; and

        That the Agreement was violated.


                      A -W A R D


        Claim sustained,


                            hIATIOI_SL RAILROAD ADJUST1)UI1i BOARD

        ` By Order of Third Division

ATTEST: J /r~ ~~/~_ i
        Executive Secretary


Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 29th day of June 1973,