The Third Division consisted of the regular members and in addition Referee Susan R. Brown when award was rendered.
The Third Division of the Adjustment Board, upon the whole record and all the evidence, fnds 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. Form 1 Award No. 39648
In January 2002, Claimant R. Miles, a B&B Mechanic-Carpenter, was on furlough from his position with Basic Force 6D78 in Hancock, West Virginia. For a period of three weeks (12 ten-hour days) in that month, Crane Operator C. Woodrum, a member of Service Lane Force 5X88, was assigned to work with Basic Force 6D78 while the Claimant was on furlough. Woodrum performed no machine operation during that period; his crane was parked several states away. Instead, he performed work generally performed by a Mechanic-Carpenter. The Crane Operator received his own higher rate of pay during this temporary assignment.
The Organization argues that an employee may not be assigned across jurisdictional lines while an employee on the appropriate seniority list is on furlough. The Carrier contends that there is note to prohibit it from assigning secondary duties to an employee when his machine is not needed. Moreover, there was no position for the Claimant to be called back to; this was an assignment, not a position.
There are several lines of prior Board cases that address situations similar to the one before us, each looking at the analysis from a different perspective. The line we find most persuasively pertinent to the situation before us is best represented by Third Division Award 25282 which deals with the question of incidental work. Referee Rodney Dennis acknowledges in that Award that "there is some overlap between job categories . . . that cannot and should not be avoided." But he also notes that full-time assignment to cross-jurisdictional work (one week in his case, three weeks here) cannot be considered "incidental." We agree.
Absent a specific definition of the word "incidental" in the Agreement, we turn to normal usage. In the employment context, "incidental" is generally understood to apply to non-core tasks performed by an employee during the normal course of his regular work. Permitting employees in one craft to perform work that technically belongs to a different craft is designed to eliminate inefficient and costly delays while, for example, an Electrician is called in to screw in a burned-out fight bulb. Extensive and exclusive performance of a Mechanic-Carpenter' duties, however, is not incidental to crane operation. Examples of permissible incidental cross-jurisdictional work, on the other hand, are found in Third Division Awards 37668 and 37669. The first Award dealt with one day of clean-up performed by several B&B employees in order to complete their assigned project; the second addressed six hours of cross- Form I Award No. 3964$
jurisdictional work performed by an employee on each of three days in order to complete a particular task that was properly within his jurisdiction.
The Carrier's argument that there was no position for the Claimant to be called back to is unavailing; the Crane Operator was performing the work of the Claimant's position. When the Claimant requested to bump him, he was told he was ineligible because he could not operate a crane! This is a circular argument that, if adopted, would serve to dissolve utterly the seniority lines now in existence. This observation is confirmed by the parties' Agreement that Service Lane gangs would not be used as a device to eliminate basic maintenance forces.
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.