The Third Division consisted of the regular members and in addition Referee Gerald E. Wallin when award was rendered.
The Third Division of the adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, finds that:
The carrier or carriers and the employee or employees involved in this dispute are respectively carrier and employee 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 not in dispute. Claimant is a Signal Maintainer who was properly listed in accordance with Appendix P of the parties' Agreement for overtime calls in his territory. His regular assignment was 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. At approximately 4:00 p.m. on December 11, 1991, Carrier experienced trouble with one of the control points, CP Scotten, in its Centralized Traffic Control system. The CP was "off the air" in that it was not communicating with the central system. Carrier representatives concluded the problem was almost certainly electronic in nature. Accordingly, it did riot attempt to call out Claimant to investigate the problem and attempt to repair i=. Form 1 Award No. 31249
Rather, Carrier immediately dispatched an Electronic Technician at 4:15 p.m., who repaired the outage and marked off at 8:15 p.m. The repair work involved removing and reseating a circuit board as well as resetting the Central Processing Unit (CPU) by means of activating a toggle switch.
The organization contends Claimant was entitled to the call per Appendix P. It argues that the disputed work was Maintainer work for which, under Paragraph 6 of Appendix P, Claimant held first call priority. It says that Electronic Technicians were established to make field repairs of equipment that Maintainers could not repair through normal maintenance testing and adjustment. It contends the actual work did not require Technician skills. In addition, the Organization argues that well established Board precedent says that classification of work provisions :n an agreement do not constitute an exclusive reservation of work. Accordingly, it seeks four hours pay at the time and one-half rate as remedial compensation.
Carrier contends that the work was known in advance to be electronic and, as such, falls within the descriptive language of the Electronic Technician classification. Carrier maintains it was entirely appropriate to immediately assign the Electronic Technician instead of calling Claimant. In addition, Carrier notes the Claim is excessive in light of several prior awards of this Board, involving these same parties, holding that the overtime rate of pay is not appropriate where Claimant did not actually work.
The parties Agreement describes the involved classifications as follows:
In addition, Appendix P of the effective Agreement provides, in pertinent part, as follows:
The record in this dispute calls upon us to make a narrow interpretation of the applicable Agreement provisions. For that reason, our decision is confined to the particular facts of this record.
The parties have established, in Appendix P, a precisely detailed procedure for overtime calls involving Maintainer's work. To the extent that the procedure was applicable, there is no dispute that Claimant was properly listed to be called. In addition, the parties have developed language to describe the work of the Electronic Technician and Maintainer classifications. Form 1 Award No. 31249
However, the instant record describes the actual repair work performed in relatively general terms. As a result, it is not clear that the work of removing and reseating circuit boards, as well as resetting the CPU by activating a toggle switch, is beyond the scope of routine Maintainer skills and troubleshooting procedures. The description of the Maintainer classification is sufficiently broad that it could, on this record, encompass the actual work involved. Moreover, no Agreement provision has been cited that explicitly suspends the operation of Appendix P whenever Carrier has reason to suspect that more technical electronic repair procedures may be required to remedy a given situation. Given the nature of Carrier's defense to the Claim, it has the burden to establish its validity. On this record, it has not done so.
It is the conclusion of the Board, therefore, that the Carrier violated Paragraphs 6 and 9 of Appendix P in failing to make a reasonable effort to call Claimant to investigate the problem at CP Scotten.
A remedy issue remains. The parties disagree over the rate of compensatory pay due to Claimant. That issue was resolved, initially, and later followed, in Third Division Awards 26340, 27606, 28231 and 29349, all involving these same parties. We see no reason to depart from these prior decisions. The Claim should be paid at the straight time rate.
This Board, after consideration of the dispute identified above, hereby orders that an award favorable to the Claimant(s) be made. The Carrier is ordered to make the Award effective on or before 30 days following the postmark date the Award is transmitted to the parties. Fore 1 Award No. 31249