The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds that:
The carrier or carriers and the employe or employes involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employe within the meaning of the Railway Labor Act as approved June 21, 1934.
This Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein.
Parties to said dispute waived right of appearance at hearing thereon.
The dispute here is over the interpretation of displacement rights when exercising seniority. Violations of the Agreement are alleged as a result of Carrier's refusal to allow a senior employee to displace either of two junior employees on or about February il, 1986. Form 1 Award No. 29594
The parties' respective positions distill down to essentially this: The organization contends Carrier should have allowed the Claimant an opportunity to demonstrate his qualification to operate two pieces of machinery; the Carrier states an employee seeking to displace, in the circumstances of the instant dispute, must be presently qualified and, since Claimant was not immediately qualified, he was not entitled to displace. There is no dispute that Claimant had not been previously trained or certified to operate either piece of machinery in question.
Our review of the record reveals that Carrier offered substantial evidence in support of its contention that an approximately ten year practice, acquiesced in by the Organization, established the requirement that employees seeking to displace onto specialized equipment must be immediately qualified to operate the equipment. On this record, the organization did not challenge the Carrier's evidence. Accordingly, we find that the Carrier did not violate the Agreement as charged.