This Division of the Adjustment Board has jurisdiction over the dispute involved herein.

Parties to said dispute were given due notice of hearing thereon.

The instant dispute arose after the Carrier issued Operations Bulletin No. 052006. The thrust of the bulletin was to announce the requirement, effective February 15, 2006, that all Carrier customers would have to obtain a User ID and PIN number to contact the Customer Service Team (Problem Resolution) concerning delayed cars, lost cars, bad orders, location of cars, and similar problems. Page 2 of the bulletin included a series of Frequently Asked Questions to be used as a script to respond to customer questions about the new requirement for an ID and PIN. The bulletin also asked that all problem resolution calls be transferred to an internal extension where the call would be handled by the Customer Service Team.

As noted in the Statement of Claim, the Organization contends that the Carrier improperly removed bargaining unit work in violation of the parties' Scope Rule which reserves positions or work. In support of its position, the Organization included 200 statements from employees attesting to the fact that they were instructed ". . . to no longer have telephone contact with the customer but instead, transfer any customer's call to number 7515 . . . ."

In contrast, the Carrier's position is that the disputed work is and has been properly performed by the Customer Service Team since the forging of an Agreement with the Organization to that effect dated January 11, 2000. The Carrier also challenges the 200 employee statements as being mere perfunctory form letters that are inaccurate and attempt to circumvent the January 11, 2000 Agreement. The Carrier also provided statements from two Managers attesting that the disputed work has been performed by Customer Service Team personnel since the implementation of the January 11, 2000 Agreement and that the bulletin in question did not produce any changes in work methods beyond the requirement that each customer have a User ID and PIN.

In addition to the foregoing items, the record contains the January 11, 2000 Agreement as well as a November 30, 1999 letter to the Carrier from the General Chairman at the time concerning the Agreement contemplated. The letter referenced a discussion on November 11, 1999 and explained the General Chairman's understanding of that discussion. The contemplated Agreement would consolidate two groups into one larger group and relocate them to office space that would accommodate them. One component was fully covered by the parties' Agreement. The other component was non-contract. The consolidated group was to become all Agency Fee Payers. Significantly, the General Chairman's letter described his understanding of the work practices of the two groups prior to consolidation. One performed proactive telephone contact with customers whereby the employees would place outbound calls to customers to provide problem resolution affiance to them. The other group performed reactive telephone contact whereby they would provide problem resolution service to customers calling inbound to the Carrier. Aside from the General Chairman's understanding about this proactive-reactive distinction, his letter contained this sentence:

"As discussed, both groups perform the same functions of tracing cars and assisting shippers and customers."

Although the Letter of Agreement made reference to the General Chairman's letter of November 30, 1999, the Carrier's author of the Letter of Agreement was not the same person to whom the General Chairman wrote his letter. Our review of the record before the Board does not reveal that the General Chairman ever received any confirmation from the person to whom he wrote about the work practices that existed in the two work groups prior to the consolidation, nor any work practices that would be followed by the combined group after consolidation.

The Letter of Agreement also references a December 14, 1999 conversation between the Carrier's author and the General Chairman. However, our review of the record shows it to be entirely silent about the content of the referenced conversation.

In light of the foregoing factors, we cannot ignore the fact that the January 11, 2000 Letter of Agreement was signed by all parties without containing any

restrictions whatsoever upon the work to be performed or the methods to be used by the combined group to provide problem resolution services after its consolidation.

The record does not contain any comparable evidence from either of the two Organization signatories to that Agreement is opposition to the Carrier's position-

Given the state of the record before the Board, we must find that the Organization failed to prove that the parties' Agreement was violated as alleged in the claim. The claim, therefore, must be denied.

AWARD