NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSMENT BOARD
 ` - - Award Number 24165
 THIRD DIVISION Docket Number SG-23458





        STAMMT OF CLAIM: "Claim of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of

        Railroad Signalmen on the Central of Georgia Railroad Company that Carrier be required:


      (a) To rebulletin the position of Traveling Signal Maintainer headquarters Coltunbus.9 Georgia that was abolished on bulletin S-133 to au signal employees on the Central of Georgia Railroad. That signal employees affected by the Traveling Signal Maintainer position being rebulletiaedq be returned to their former permanent position unless they have bid is a higher class and that they be paid any expense incurred returning to their former position.


    _ (b) To pay the employee assigned presently P. R. Worthy or his

    successor, to the signal maintainer position at Columbus Georgia at the -

        monthly rate as provided is Rule 4f, covering Traveling Signal Maintainers. -

        Claim for pay is to start January 8j, 1979 and is to continue until settled

        or until the position is rebulletined as a Traveling Signal Maintainer."


        OPINION OF BOARD: The Organization notes that Rule 6 defines a Traveling

        Signal Maintainer as well as a Signal Maintainer and Rule 64 precludes the discontinuance of an established position and creation of a new position under a different title covering relatively the same class of work for the purpose of reducing the rate of pay or evading the application of Agreement Rules.


        The organization then asserts that when J. J. Andrews retired as a Traveling Signal Maintainer in 1978 the Carrier abolished that position and in the same bulletins it advertised as hourly rated Siaoal Maintainer position concerning roughly the same territory. Thereafter some procedural matters arose and were handled however this dispute presents the question of whether or not the Company has violated the basic Agreement by its action of altering the identity of the position.


        There is no question that the economic amounts paid to s Signal Maintainer on a regular hourly basis with no overtime is significantly less than the amount of monthly compensation which would be paid to a Traveling Signal Maintainer. But that does not dispose of the case. Surely, a Carrier need not necessarily maintain a position indefinitely if the character of the work requirements have altered. Here the Organization has an obligation to'show., by a substantive preponderance of the evidences that the Rules have been violated. In facts the indications of record show that there is no

                      Award Number 24165 Page 2

                      Docket Number SG-23k58


significant amount of travel involved for the position and thus it is appropriate, under the language of the contract and various cited Awards, to permit the Carrier to function is the meaner it did.

 FINDITiGS: The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, after giving the
 parties to this dispute due notice of hearing thereon, and
 upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds and holds:

 That the Carrier and the Employer 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

                        By Order of Third Division


ATTEST: Acting Executive Secretary
 National Railroad Adjustment Board

 BY
 /-Rosemarie Brasch - Administrative Assistant

 Dated at Chicago. Illinois, this 15th day of February 1983.

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