:tATIC'T4I, RAILROAD ADJLJST:M7T BOARD

              Award :lumber 23020

              THIRD DIVISION Docket lumber SG-228


                  Martin F. Scheinman, Referee
                  (Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen PARTIES TO DISPUTE:
                                (Illinois Central Gulf Railroad


                                STAT=E- OF CLALM: "Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the Illinois Gulf Railroad:


                  For compensation for 800 hours for all assistants who were in a nonvoluntary furlough status beginning with the date, April 19, 1978, the carrier received delivery of a retarder section (at the E. St. Louis Hump) that had been assembled by persons who hold no seniority or other rights under the Signalmen's Agreement, account the performance of such work by other than signal forces is a violation of past practice and the Signalmen's Agreement, especially the Scope, Rule 1)a).

                  (Carrier file: 135-241-198 Spl. Case No. 335 Sig.)"

                  OPLIION OF SOAP: The Organization contends that Carrier violated the

                  Agreement when it assigned employes, other than signal employes, the work of assembling car retarders for its East St. Louis 'card car retarder system. The preassembled retarders were installed by signal employes.

                  The Organization's claim rests primarily on the Scope Rule. It asserts that construction of car retarders falls within the work rule. The Organization also arses that signal employes had performed the disputed work since car retarders were installed on Carrier's property in the 1920's.

                  On April 19th, 1978, Carrier received a preassembled car retarder section from the Lucey Boiler Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

                  The evidence on the property as well as the submissions to this Board clearly establishes that Carrier purchased the end product of the Lucey Boiler Company. The disputed work was completed prior to the tire that Carrier acquired possession of the equipment. That is, there is nothing to indicate that this did not constitute a purchase.

                  This is not the situation where the unassembled equipment was on the property and then sent out for assembling. If that was the case, the rights of the employes under the Scope Rule would attach. Here these rights hale not yet attached. In short, the purchasing of a finished product, in the circ·,:mstanc·s presented here, cannot be viewed as the contracting ou the farming out of bargaining unit work.
                                    Award Number 23020 Page 2

                                    Docket Humber SG-22890


                  This Hoard has consistently held that Carrier may purchase assembled equipment without violating the Scope Rule. See for example Awards 5044, 21824. Those cases are applicable here. Therefore, we will deny the claim.

                        FINDINGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Hoard, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:


                        That the parties waived oral hearing:


                        That the Carrier and the Employee involved in this dispute


                  are respectively Carrier and Employes within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act, as approved dune 21, 1934;

                  That this Division of the Adjustment Hoard has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein; and

                        That the Agreement was not violated.


                                      A Vi A R D


                        Claim denied.


                                        UTICKAL RAILROAD ADJISTDM HOARD

                                        W Order of Third Division


                  ATTEST:
                  Executive Secretary

                  Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 17th day of October 1980.