Form 1 NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
THIRD DIVISION
Award No. 44649 Docket No. SG-45836
22-3-NRAB-00003-200177
The Third Division consisted of the regular members and in addition Referee Andria S. Knapp when award was rendered.
(BROTHERHOOD OF RAILWAY SIGNALMEN
NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION (AMTRAK)
“Claim on behalf of the General Committee of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen on the National Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak).
Grievance on behalf of BRS Chesapeake Division (SD-3) employees, for assignment of the communications work in the Railway Express Building. Carrier account of Carrier's violation of the Signalmen's Agreement, particularly the Scope Rule, Rule 7, and Appendix B-11, when it refused to acknowledge that work of installing, repairing, maintaining communication systems at the Railway Express Building is covered by the BRS-Amtrak collective bargaining agreement. Carrier’s File No. BRS-SD-1270 (REA). General Chairman’s File No. AEDC #2018652, BRS File Case No. 16116-NRPC(S). NMB Code No. 202.
C(S) 7 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.
AMTRAK trains depart and arrive at the Washington Terminal (Union Station) in Washington, D.C. Adjacent to the Washington Terminal is a building known as the Railway Express Agency Building (REA).
Originally, The Washington Terminal was owned by the Washington Terminal Company and was not acquired by AMTRAK until the early 1980s. When Amtrak acquired the Washington Terminal. Amtrak and BRS negotiated to supplement their collective bargaining agreement to cover signal work at the Washington Terminal. In 1984 they added Appendix B-11, which states:
In view of the transaction which will result in the assumption by Amtrak of the Communication and Signal work formerly performed by employees of the Washington Terminal Company, the parties agree to the following . . .
Seniority District No. 3 — Chesapeake Division as described in the [collective bargaining agreement ] is modified to include the former Washington Terminal Company property within that seniority District.
With Appendix B-11, BRS negotiated the right to perform signal and communication work on property formerly owned by the Washington Terminal Company(WTC). WTC did not at that time own the REA Building, which was then owned by Mount Claire Properties.
In 2015, in conjunction with plans to expand Union Station, the Carrier exercised eminent domain and acquired ownership of the REA Building. In early 2017, the Organization queried whether Amtrak would assign communications and signal work in the REA Building to its members. Amtrak responded that work within the REA Building was not within the scope of the Agreement between Amtrak and BRS.
In June 2017, the Organization filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the Carrier violated the parties’ Agreement and the Railway Labor Act by not acknowledging that the communication work in the REA building accrued to its members. On May 18, 2018, The Court dismissed the complaint, holding that the issue was a minor dispute over which it lacked jurisdiction. The Organization filed this claim on June 11, 2018:
BRS hereby grieves Amtrak’s refusal to acknowledge that the communications system work at the Railway Express Building (REA) is covered by the BRS/Amtrak collective bargaining agreement, now that the Railway Express Building is owned by Amtrak BRS submits that
Amtrak’s actions and its refusal to apply the CBA and its refusal to apply the Scope Rule of the CBA to that work. BRS submits that Amtrak’s actions and its refusal to apply the Scope Rule of the CBA to the communications systems work at the Railway Express Building violate Rule 1 Scope, Rule 7 Seniority Districts and Appendix B-11 NRPC/BRS Washington Terminal Agreement (WTA) and that Amtrak is in violation of those provisions for so long as it refuses to apply the CBA to that work, now that the Railway Express Building is owned by Amtrak.
The Carrier contends that the Claim must be dismissed because it is procedurally defective; the original Claim named no Claimants; identified no specific work and requested no monetary relief. The only remedy sought was for Amtrak to acknowledge that the CBA applies to work at the REA Building now that it is owned by Amtrak. It was only in its statement of Claim before the Board that the Organization requested that its members be assigned communications work in the REA Building. It is well-established that a claim presented to the Board that varies substantially from the claim presented on the property is subject to dismissal.
More importantly, the original claim requests what is essentially a declaratory judgment, inasmuch as the statement of claim now before the Board is asking for future work to be assigned to BRS members. The Board does not have jurisdiction to interpret and apply the Agreement to future situations, the facts of which are unknown. Declaratory judgments and injunctive relief are beyond the jurisdiction of the Board, whose “function is to resolve claims arising from established or determinable facts and issues.” PLB No. 1202, Award No. 1. The mere fact that ownership of the REA Building has changed does not bring it within the Scope of the parties’ Agreement. The parties have dealt with this same issue previously, when Amtrak assumed ownership of the Washington Terminal. BRS members had not previously been assigned to perform communications work at the Washington Terminal because the building was owned by another entity, not Amtrak. When Amtrak acquired ownership of the Washington Terminal, its communications work did not automatically accrue to BRS. Instead, the parties negotiated an agreement (Appendix B-11) to bring communications work there within the Scope of the parties’ Agreement.
According to the Organization, the claim is not a request for summary judgment. The Organization is merely seeking to have future communications work at the REA building assigned to its members. The Carrier has raised no reason why BRS employees could not or should not perform the work.
The Board agrees with the Carrier that the claim is a request for an advisory opinion and is therefore beyond the Board’s jurisdiction.
It is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence—something that first-year law students learn in the first semester of Civil Procedure—that there must be a case in controversy before a lawsuit can be filed; the fact that an entity might do something in violation of a contract is not enough to establish a right to sue for breach of that contract. In this claim, there is no contention and no evidence that the Carrier has assigned any communications work at the REA Building to anyone, much less to non- BRS-represented employees.
The Organization is asking the Board to rule on a hypothetical set of facts that has yet to materialize. The Board’s jurisdiction is limited to actual controversies between the parties. Until such a controversy arises, the Board must dismiss the claim before it. In the interim, the parties are free to negotiate a resolution
regarding communications work in the REA Building, similar to their negotiations when Amtrak acquired the Washington Terminal.
Claim dismissed.
This Board, after consideration of the dispute identified above, hereby orders that an Award favorable to the Organization not be made.
NATIONAL RAILROAD ADJUSTMENT BOARD
By Order of Third Division Dated at Chicago, Illinois, this 15th day of December 2021.