A claim was filed on October 21, 1989 on grounds that the Signalmen's agreement was violated when a S & E supervisor took indication equipment for "...a signal system from the Signal Maintainer's tool house at Mile Post 584.5 and took the equipment to ...Mile Post 626.4 and worked at this location clearing the trouble in the signal system causing indication problems." In responding to the claim, the Carrier states the following:

"The handling, loading and unloading of material is not covered by the Scope Rule (of the Signalmen's Agreement) and there is ...no violation of the agreement for a supervisor to transport material to be used by signal maintenance personnel."

The parties agree that the amount of time involved, on August 24, 1989 was 2.4 hours. There is no evidence of record that the S & E Supervisor did other than transport the materials in question to the work site.

In responding to the first denial of the claim the General Chairman of the organization states the following:

"(The) equipment (in question) was in the Maintainer's tool house to be on hand in case of an equipment failure. Part of replacing any piece of equipment failure in the Signal System requires the Maintainer to take the equipment from his tool house, load, haul, unload and install to replace the equipment that has failed. It is part of his normal duties whether it is performed on overtime or during regular working hours. It is signal work recognized by the Agreement and covered by the Scope of the Signalmen's Agreement..."

According to the Carrier, this type of issue has already been resolved in arbitration and it cites precedent to that effect.

The issue before the Board is whether the transporting of signal material on this property is exclusively signalmen work under the operant Agreement. A review of the provisions of the Agreement shows that it does not specifically address this question. Further, there is arbitral precedent which holds that the transporting of material is not covered under the Scope Rule of the Organization's Agreement. For example, in Third Division Award 21294, rendered on this property, which involved a similar dispute between the same parties who are party to this claim, the Board held, citing earlier Award 13347, that:

Signalmen's in a given case...".

"We find that the transporting of signal material to a job site... is not work exclusively belonging to Signalmen. The Scope Rule of the Signal Agreement does not specifically mention the transporting of signal materials to job sites, as that work reserved to the Signalmen... ".

More recently, Third Division Award 28353 between the Signalmen and the Central of Georgia Railroad Company came to a similar conclusion with respect to the proper interpretation of the Scope Rule of the Signalmen's craft. In that Award the Board states that the 11...task of transporting signal material is not reserved by the applicable Scope Rule...". Award 10 of Public Law Board 2044 also concluded similarly.

In view of the language of contract, and arbitral precedent Interpreting this language, the Board must conclude the issue

before it in this case has already been settled in arbitral forums and it rules accordingly. Since some of the arbitration Awards cited in the foregoing have been rendered on this property, it is also not inappropriate to conclude, as the Carrier does, that the instant claim is covered by the principle of res iudicata. To this effect, the conclusions arrived at in Third Division Award 6935 properly apply to this case. In that Award it is stated that:

"If, as we maintain, our awards are final and binding, there must be an end sometime to one and the same dispute or we... invite endless controversy instead."

The Agreement has not been violated.

A W A R D