Carrier's Centralized Customer Service Center ("CSC") located in Jacksonville, Florida, is staffed with approximately 800 clerical employees performing "pool type" work with the same bulletined duties and the same rate of pay. Under the terms of Section 7 of a Memorandum of Agreement dated January 29, 1991, employees are provided up to four weeks of classroom training prior to their being given their actual on-the-job assignment. Additional training is also available, on an ad hoc basis, for individual remedial assistance and upgrading skills.
Claimant had been provided classroom training and had successfully worked as a CSC Clerk for the Detroit area.
On September 1,1995, Claimant was awarded Relief Position Chicago ROL That job relieves three other positions, Nos. 100, 101 and 102. Claimant received nine days training on Position No. 100, ten days training on Position No. 101, and five days training on Position No. 102, for a total of 24 days additional training. On the contention that she was not qualified to work Position No. 100 (which she was scheduled to work as a relief on Saturdays) Carrier disqualified Claimant from Position ROL Claimant requested an Unjust Treatment Hearing, which was held on December 7, 1995. Following the Hearing Carrier notified Claimant that it was determined that her disqualification was not unjust.
The Organization contends that all jobs in the CSC pool are the same and that an employee who is qualified for one job must be considered as qualified for all jobs comprising the pool. In Claimant's case, the Organization notes, there never were any complaints registered concerning the quality of her work or performance on the "Detroit job." Therefore it must be assumed that she was qualified to work the jobs comprising Relief Position ROI, and it was inappropriate for Carrier to disqualify her from that assignment.
The Organization further notes that Carrier is seeking to have it "both ways." It says that Carrier wants to treat all employees in the CSC Pool as qualified on all jobs when calling overtime, scheduling holiday work, blanking positions, or charging a job against an employee's claim for displacement allowance. But then it wants to impose traditional job qualification standards when an employee bids from one pool job to the Form 1 Award No. 32871
next. The Organization insists that Carrier is not privileged to impose traditional qualification standards when the work is pool type work, as is the case here.
Carrier argues that the Board has repeatedly held that Management is the sole judge of an employee's fitness and ability. In this matter it determined that Claimant lacked the fitness and ability for the job she bid on, she was properly disqualified, an Unjust Treatment Hearing was held at her request, and it was not established in the Hearing that she was unjustly treated. Accordingly, the Board may not substitute its judgment for that of Carrier, it contends, and the disqualification should not be disturbed.
Furthermore, Carrier suggests that the only reason that Claimant challenged her disqualification was because after she was taken off Relief Position R07, she was returned to second shift work and these hours "messed up her whole life style."
With regard to remedy, the Carrier notes that while the Organization has asked that she be made whole for any "time lost" there is no evidence that Claimant "lost" any time, therefore no monetary remedy is in order even if the claim had merit.
The Board finds the disqualification of Claimant to be flawed. For one thing, in this record it has not been established to our satisfaction that Claimant was unable to adequately perform the duties of the job. Instead, it seems that the Manager of the Department made a decision to effect Claimant's disqualification on the first day that she was assigned to work one of the schedules of the relief assignment, and that his determination was made on the basis of complaints he had received from Trainmasters on alleged slowness connected with just one train - the Ottawa Train. Because the position was a relief job working three different assignments each week, disqualification after the first day on the job following training seems premature.
Secondly, the Board agrees with the Organization that the jobs in the CSC are pool jobs. The duties and responsibilities of all, as noted in bulletins, are identical. Furthermore, Carrier stated in another matter that:
Accordingly, it must be presumed that assignment on one qualifies the employee for all. And, by the same token, disqualification from one would result in disqualification from all.
The claim has merit. It will be sustained. Claimant is to be returned to Position Chicago ROl and given the necessary retraining, in accordance with existing practices, to qualify for the assignment. The request for wages lost is not granted, as there is no showing that Claimant lost any time as a result of the disqualification.
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.