(Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen PARTIES TO DISPUTE:


STATEMENT OF CLAIM: Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of
 Railroad Signalmen on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company (former Pere Marquette Railroad):

 a) Carrier violated and continues to violate the current Agreement and its intent negotiated on January 20, 1941 from former Signal Engineer G. W. Trout addressed to former BRS General Chairman A. Carrier refused to allow its Communication and Signal' (C&S) Maintainers the same rate of pay as paid other Signal Maintainers assigned and performing the same type of signal work.

 b) Carrier now take necessary action to compensate its C&S Maintainers named below at the ra all hours worked resulting from the violation cited in part (a) above:
 C&0 ID C&0 ID
 Number Number
 C. J. Hoaglin 2490654 G. H. Jennings 2487447
 C. L. Packer 2487272 R. F. Fuller 2484430
 G. A. Lutkus 2420255 J. W. McKillop 2484272
 R. G. Robertson 2933468 , M. E. Penrose 2484429
 J. L. Hawkins 2487290 R. K. Wilkins 2484439
 D. F. Reusser 2491222

 c) Inasmuch as this is a continuing violation, said claim to be retroactive sixty (60) days from date filed (January 10, 1974) and to continue until such time as Ca with violation cited in part (a) above.



OPINION OF BOARD: This Claim is made on behalf of eleven Communication
 and Signal (C & S) Maintainers who assert they are
 entitled to the same rate of pay as paid to Signal Maintainers. The
 history of this dispute goes back to an agreement of January 20, 1941
 wherein employes previously classified as lineman were re-classified as
 Telegraph-Signal Maintainers with the same rate of pay as signal main
 tainers. The Organization submits twenty-four exhibits covering the
 period 1951 to and including the communications on the property relative
 to the instant dispute. Their contention is that the parity arrangement
 for pay rates of signal maintainers continued throughout this period
 until the Pere Marquette Agreement, effective March 1, 1973. In that
 Agreement carrier agreed to increase the hourly rate of Signal Maintainers
 Working Independently by five cents per hour. As a consequence Signal
 Maintainers Working Independently have the hourly rate of $5.79 per hour
 while C & S Maintainers earn $5.74 per hour.

 The Organization claims the 1941 agreement should control and the C & S Maintainers are entitled to the additional five cents per hour. Further, it points to the practice of thirty-three years (1941 - 1974) which "has the same force and effect as the provisions of the contract itself".

 The carrier claims the new agreement merely added a new classification and to that extent change are persuaded that the Carriers' position must be sustained.

 The burden is on the claimants and their representatives to support their contention that the prior long standing arrangement that kept Signal Maintainers and C & S Maintainers at the same pay level, was to continue after the 1973 agreement.

 It is the agreement of the parties that must control. An earlier agreement may be changed by a later one and frequently we look to established past practice as a method of determining what the parties meant when they reached an agreement, p4rticularly one with ambiguties. But that does not mean a practice based upon a prior agreement cannot be changed in a new agreement. If the claimant is to persuade us something different was intended in the 1973 agreement it must meet its burden of proof with evidence to that effect. It did not do so here. The evidence is persuasive to the effect that the March 1, 1973 agreement covered the Signal Department Employes and not the Communications Department Employes which includes C & S Maintainers.

 Similarly, the Rules 1, 103, 213, 701(a), 908 and 920 are susceptible to the same conclusion and do not require separate discussion.
                Award Number 21418 Page 3

              Docket Number SG-21207


        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 the Railway Labor Act, as approved June 21, 1934;

 That this Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; an
        The Agreement was not violated.


                  A W A R D


        Claim denied.


                        NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD

                        By Order of Third Division


        ATTEST: Executive Secretary


Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 18th day of February 1977.