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 employs 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 basic facts are as follows. The Claimants are Electric Traction Department Linemen headquartered at Sunnyside Yard in New York City. The Claimants had been offered and accepted an overtime assignment for Sunday, April 17, 1988, to take the catenary electrical power out so that Track Department employees could safely perform cleanup with a front-end loader around Loop 2 and Sunnyside Yard. Because of adverse weather conditions, the Carrier decided (on Saturday night) to cancel the work. When that decision was made, the Power Director made attempts to reach the Claimants at home to notify them not to report; however, he was not successful. When the Claimants reported on Sunday morning, they were sent home and paid a call. Form 1 Award No. 30188
The carrier contends that the work in question is not "protect service" and thus falls under Rule 53. Based on a very old Award (Decision No. 357 of the Pennsylvania-Long Island Railroad System Board of Adjustment, dated October 7, 1947) and statements from various employees, the Carrier contends that protect service is essentially stand-by service where no particular duty is assigned, but instead, the employee is to be available (to protect) to assist special trains or train movements in the event of trouble. For instance, Decision No. 357 involved protection for the Presidential train.
The Board is mindful, in evaluating the record, that the burden of persuasion is on the Organization. The Board views Rule 54 and particularly the key phrase "protect service" as, essentially, ambiguous. In this regard the burden is on the organization to show that the Rule was intended to equate deenergizing electrical wires with "protect service" or that the Parties have applied the Rule in this manner.
The Organization offered nothing in terms of bargaining history or past practice to support its position. Instead, it made an argument based on the face of the language. Because the duties were to protect the crews from electrocution, it is, so goes its argument, "protect service." This Board does not find this logic persuasive. Parties often use words and phrases in ways to give them unique and special meanings. The railroad industry, in general, has its own unique "lingo," and each railroad its own particular dialect. "Protect service" could mean any number of things, and indeed, the fact the original framers of the Agreement put the term in indirect quotation marks and capitalized it, suggests they had a special and particular meaning in mind. If the Parties wanted to have Rule 54 apply to the generalized concept of "protection," they could have said so. Instead, they use a phrase that evidently had been coined to denote something in particular.
The Organization relied on Third Division Award 26777. This Board will not disturb the findings of that Award as it relates to its underlying facts. However, we do note that its facts related to flagging and, as such, is not the fact pattern here. We do not believe that its rationale (which is not particularly apparent) can be reasonably extended to this even more generalized situation.
The Board is not prepared, on the basis of this record, to say exactly what Rule 54 covers. It can be said, however, that we are not convinced, on the basis of this record, that it applies to the deenergizing of overhead wires. Accordingly, the claim must be denied for lack of proof. Form 1 Award No. 30188