NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
THIRD DIVISION Docket Number MW-26104
(Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes
PARTIES TO DISPUTE:
(The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company (Southern Region)
STATEMENT OF CLAIM: "Claim of the System Committee of the Brotherhood that:
1. The Carrier violated the Agreement when it assigned Pipe Fitters
to attach three (3) heater brackets to the superstructure at Huntington Shops
on January 5 and 6, 1983 (System File C-TC-1565/MG-3930).
2. Because of the aforesaid violation, Messrs. K. Brown, J. D. Cupp,
G. R. Harper, R. E. Adkins, W. P. Steele and D. E. Scarberry shall each be
allowed pay at their respective rates for an equal proportionate share of the
three (3) man-hours expended by the Pipe Fitters in performing the work referred to in Part (1) here
OPINION OF BOARD: This Claim is based on Organization's contention that Car
rier used Shop Craft employees to perform work contract
ually reserved to the Bridge and Structures forces under Rule 66 which reads
in part:
"(c) . . . bridge and structures forces will perform the work to which they are entitled under t
rules of this agreement in connection with the
construction, maintenance, and/or removal of bridge
. . . buildings or structures, except where such
work is performed by other employees under other
agreements in accordance with the rules of such
agreements or past practice in the allocation of
such work between the different crafts, including
work performed by shopmen . . . .
The Claim arose because on January 5 and 6, 1983, two Sheet Metal
Workers were assigned to attach brackets for the installation of space heaters
to the structural steel columns at the Carrier's Huntington, West Virginia
Blacksmith Shop. The Organization asserts the two worked three hours while
the Carrier states two hours were taken.
The Organization believes that work is reserved to it by the Scope
Rule, which it views as specific, and further as the Rule is specific it is
not necessary for it to establish exclusivity. Rather it is for the Carrier
to establish, by proof, a past practice of this work being assigned to Shop
Craft people. The Sheet Metal Workers International Union position is that it
has long been the practice at the Huntington Shops that hanging of heaters is
a classification of work done by Sheet Metal Workers.
Award Number 26166 Page 2
Docket Number MW-26104
There have been several recent Awards involving the parties in which
the Claim was made that the Rule was violated by assignment of work to Shop
Craft Employees. All resulted in denial. These include Third Division Awards
25653, 25488, 25578 and 25652. The facts in Award 25652 are similar to the
facts here. There the Claim was that Sheet Metal Workers were assigned to
"install brackets for the support of space heaters on structural steel columns
at the Huntington, West Virginia shop buildings." The only difference between
the two cases seems to lie in the fact that in Award 25652 the Sheet Metal
Workers drilled holes in the columns in order to bolt the brackets while in
this case the brackets apparently were attached to preexisting holes. In
Award 25652 this Board held:
"The Board concludes that the Scope Rule in the
Agreement between the Organization and the Carrier
does not by specific terms clearly cover the work
in dispute in the instant case. Installation of
brackets, involving as it did here the drilling of
holes in and affixing of brackets to structural
columns, does not in any manner constitute the
construction, maintenance or removal of a structure."
We consider that dispositive of this 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 p
By Order of Third Divisio
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Attest:
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ancy J. v -Executive Secretary ~~\~0 i
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Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 29th day of October 1986. --