NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
THIRD DIVISION Docket Number SG-20092
(Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
PARTIES TO DISPUTE:
(Western Maryland Railway Company
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood
of Railroad Signalmen on the Western Maryland Railway
Company that:
(a) Carrier violated the Signal and Communication Department
Agreement, particularly the Scope, when it assigned electricians to
install intercom system in and outside Western Maryland Shops at
Hagerstown, Maryland.
(b) The employes of the Signal and Communication Department
now be allowed an amount of time equal to that consumed persons not
covered or classified under the Signalmen's Agreement.
L
IRS Case No.
4 -
19717
OPINION OF BOARD: The Carrier contends that the claim presented in this
case is defective because the individual claimants
are not identified as required by Rule 50(a) of the Agreement. Rule 50(a)
does not require that the employes involved be named (11372). This Board
has required only that the employe or employes involved must be described
in the claim with such particularity as to make his or their identity
known to the Carrier under the circumstances prevailing (11372). We
caution that this Board continues to hold that if a further dispute will
likely
ensue in
the process of identification, then the identification
by reference is insufficient (15391, 14·468). We find in this case
however, that the identification of the 55 employes on the 1971 seniority
roster is known to the Carrier, and we thus proceed to the merits of the
case.
The Employes contend that Paragraph (n) of the Scope Rule of
the Signalmen's Agreement reserves to Signalmen the exclusive right to
install an
Executone intercom
system in the Carrier's Maintenance of
Equipment Department shops at Hagerstown, Maryland.
The Carrier contends that the work in question is not exclusively
reserved to Signalmen by Agreement since the section of the Scope Rule
relied on is general in nature,
"all
work generally recognized as communication work." The Carrier asserts that the intercom installation
first
installation of
its kind and thus could not be "generally recognized
as communication work." The Carrier further asserts that the Signalmen have never been used for elec
Maintenance of
Equipment Department; and that the work was
properly assigned to shop electricians represented by the IBEW.
Award Number 20516 Page 2
Docket Number SG-20092
Paragraph (n) of the Scope Rule of the pertinent Signalmen's
Agreement states:
"(n) All work generally recognized as communication work,
except that this agreement shall not be construed as granting
to employees coming within its scope the exclusive right to
perform the work of constructing, installing, inspecting, testing, maintenance or repair of other th
the Railway Company."
The language of Paragraph (n) is general in nature and does not specify
that Signalmen shall have the exclusive right to install an intercom system.
Therefore, to prevail, the Organization must show by competent evidence that
by tradition, custom, and practice on the property, they have performed such
work to the exclusion of all others.
Since it is umcontraverted that this installation in the Maintenance
of Equipment Shops is the first intercom installation which has been made, the
Organization clearly cannot sustain its burden of showing that Organization employes have by traditi
we must deny the claim.
FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record
and all the evidence, finds and holds:
That the parties waived oral hearing;
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
That the Agreement was not violated.
A W A R D
Claim denied.
NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
4444,66-
By Order of Third Division
ATTEST:
~ W
Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 8th day of November 1974.