Form 1 NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
THIRD DIVISION
Award No. 43781 Docket No. SG-43759 19-3-NRAB-00003-160628
The Third Division consisted of the regular members and in addition Referee Andria S. Knapp when award was rendered.
(Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen PARTIES TO DISPUTE: (
(CSX Transportation, Inc.
STATEMENT OF CLAIM:
"Claim on behalf of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the CSX Transportation (formerly Louisville & Nashville):
Claim on behalf of H.T. Donaldson, for compensation at the proper pay rate for every day he was improperly compensated at a lower rate of pay for 60 days preceding the date the claim was filed, and his position code and hourly rate be corrected to his current assignment; account Carrier violated the Agreement, particularly Rules 1, 7, 8, 17, 31, 52 and 62, when it improperly compensated him at the lower rated PTC Helper position instead of the higher rated positions he was assigned to. Carrier's File No. 2015-190127. General Chairman's File No. 15-178-01. BRS File Case No. 15474-L&N."
FINDINGS:
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 were given due notice of hearing thereon.
In this case, the Organization alleges that according to his payroll records, the Claimant was improperly paid between May 12, 2014, and June 3, 2015. The claim was filed June 14, 2015, and the Agreement limits any recovery to 60 days prior. The Carrier's position all along has been that if there have been any mistakes, they should be corrected, corrections were made, and the Claimant has now been correctly compensated. The Organization contends that not all of the mistakes were corrected and Claimant is still owed compensation for dates on which he was classified as a "PTC Helper." He has never been a PTC Helper. He was awarded an Assistant Signalman position on 8/12/2013 and a Signalman's position on 4/06/2015. The Carrier claims that all mistakes have been corrected and that the Claimant is not owed any further compensation.
The focus of the claim is that Mr. Donaldson was paid as a PTC Helper (code 801) rather than as an Assistant Signalman (code 372 for 4th Step, and code 378 for 3rd Step) or as a Signalman (code 366). The record includes a chart showing Construction Rates of Pay, effective 1/1/2015. PTC Helper is not on the list, but the evidence is that the pay rate was $21.02 per hour. Assistant Signalman, 4th Step, pays $27.60 per hour. For reasons that are not explained in the record, Assistant Signalman, 3rd Step pays more, $28.24 per hour. Signalman pays $31.17 per hour. The record also includes two payroll logs for the Claimant, one for the period beginning 05/18/2015 and ending 06/05/2015 and a partial record beginning 05/12/2015 and ending 05/21/2015. Frankly, the logs are difficult for the Board to sort out because of the poor quality of the copy and the lack of a key to explain the meaning of various acronyms. In addition, there are multiple entries for any single day, and the overlapping dates of May 18 through May 21 have different entries. However, it is possible to tell that the "Position" noted in the log for all of the Claimant's entries is 801--PTC Helper. However, the actual pay rate varies from one entry to the next. The entries on the full pay period log for May 18, 19, 20 and 21 include pay rates of both $21.02 and $27.60. There are no entries for May 2224. The entries for May 25 through May 30 are all for $27.60. The entries for May 31 through June 3, the last entry, are all for $21.02. The partial pay log shows a pay rate of $27.60 for May 12, 13 and 14, and a pay rate of $31.17 for May 15, 16 and 17. In short, the Position codes do not match up with the pay rates entered into the pay logs. Also, it isdifficulttotellfromtherecordwhatamountsanddatestheClaimantwasreimbursed.
The Board is not in a position to do the full accounting that this case requires and it is remanded back to the parties for that purpose, with the following guidance:
The Claimant should not have been paid as a PTC Helper at any time. At a minimum, he should have been paid as an Assistant Signalman at the highest rate of pay. If he was not compensated for hours that he was paid at the PTC Helper rate, he is entitled to be compensated the difference between PTC Helper and Assistant Signalman, as further discussed in the next paragraph.
CSXT Labor Agreement No. 15-55-99 provides, in relevant part:
"(i)An Assistant who has been promoted to a position of Signalman or Signal Maintainer prior to completion of his training periods but later returns to a position of Assistant because of being displaced by for reduction or exercises of seniority through no fault of his own will be paid the highest Assistant's rate of pay. After completing training, Assistants will be promoted to Signalman and paid the Signalman's rate."
The evidence is that the Claimant was awarded a Signalman position in April 2015, but it appears that he was displaced. Per the above provision from Labor Agreement No. 15-55-99, hewas entitled to be paid "the highest Assistant's rate of pay." (Emphasis added.) Paradoxically, the highest Assistant's rate of pay is not the 4th step ($27.60 per hour) but the 3rd step ($28.24). The entries in Claimant's pay log that correspond to Assistant Signalman work were paid at $27.60 per hour. That is not the highestAssistant'srateofpay;Claimantshouldhavebeenpaid$28.24,andheisentitled to be compensated for the difference of $0.64 per hour for all hours that he was paid $27.60.
If the parties discover further discrepancies in the Claimant's compensation, the Board trusts that they will be corrected.
AWARD
Claim sustained in accordance with the Findings.
ORDER
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.
NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD By Order of Third Division
Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 16th day of July 2019.