( EmpLnSws PARTIES TO DISPUTE:

STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the Burlington Northern System Board of

1. Carrier violated the Agreement between the parties when it failed to allow Elmer C. Olson, Truck Chauffeur, three (3) hours pay at the punitive rate to transport Damage Free crossmembers from the Burlington Northern Material Department, Brainerd, Minnesota, to the Pine River Manufacturing Company, Pine River, Minnesota, Wednesday, May 10, 1972.

 2. Carrier shall now compensate Elmer C. Olson, Truck Chauffeur, three (3) hours pay at the puni
OPINION OF BOARD: This Scope claim arises from the handling of company
 material, metal cross-members, by the employees of a
 customer of the Carrier on Wednesday, May 10, 1972. The cross-members,
 which are used to brace and block the load in a DF (damage free) car,
 are supposed to be left in the car after the car is unloaded at destin
 ation so that they will be available for the next loading of the car.
 The cross-members disppear from time to time and, for that reason, the
 Carrier keeps cross-members on hand for re-equipping the DF cars as
 necessary. On the claim date some thirty (30) cross-members were de
 termined to be missing from OF cars furnished to a customer at Pine
 River, Minnesota. At about 2:00 PM the Agent at Pine River phoned this
 information to the Carrier's Material Manager at Brainerd, Minnesota,
 which is about thirty (30) miles from Pine River. The Manager informed
 the agent that no truck was on hand to deliver the thirty (30) cross
 members, but that they would be delivered early the next morning. How
 ever, as the customer needed ten (10) cross-members to complete a car
 loading or loadings then in process, the customer had its employees
 pick up the ten (10) cross-members from Carrier's Material Department
 at 3:00 PM on the claim date. The remaining twenty (20) cross-members
 were delivered to the customers at 8:30 the next morning by one of the
 Carrier's Store Department truck drivers.

 The employees say their Scope Rule was violated by the Carrier's action in permitting individuals not covered by the Agreement


        to load the cross-members at the Carrier's Material Department and transport them to the Customer's Plant at Pine River, Minnesota. The employees also state that the only reason for the cross-members being handled in this manner was because the Carrier refused to deliver the Members on the claim date in order to avoid overtime payment to a truck driver.


        It is clear from the record that the Carrier made a conscious decision to deliver the disputed material at pro-rata truck driver rates on the day following the claim date, rather than at overtime rates on the claim date. However, this appears to be a business decision of a kind which we presume the Carrier is required to make in innumerable instances. Certainly, there is no per se wrong involved in a decision against overtime payment and the instant record fails to show that such decision was contractually prohibited in this case. As for the material itself, the employees' correctly assert that the disputed members are company-owned property as contrasted with material transported by the Carrier but owned by others; however, this ownership facet is not especially pertinent because the i some point and pass into the possession and control of the user and loader of the DF car. We therefore believe the element of control is determinative of whether the handling of the material raises a question of Agreement coverage and, m by or for the Carrier's benefit and we shall therefore deny the claim.


                FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adustment 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; an


                That the Agreement was not violated.


i
                  Award Number 20564 Page 3

                  Docket Number CL-20380

                  A W A R D


        Claim denied.


                        NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD

                /~ By Order of Third Division


ATTEST: I~ ~~I~Y~
 Executive Secretary

 Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 30th day of December 1974.