PARTIES ) Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company
 TO TIIE ) and
 DISPUTE ) Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes

 QUESTION Is the guaranteed compensation of i~:r.
 AT ISSUE: A. R. Defoor the rate of an assistant
 foreman?

 OPINION The record is not clear. Claimant, a protected
 OF BOARD: employee, apparently held a foreman's position.
 until May, 1967, then an assistant foreman's posi
 tion and, due to the abolishment of sections, was subsequently
 required to exercise his seniority rights to obtain a laborer's
 position in September.

 If, as the Employes assert, Claimant voluntarily exercised seniority to obtain the position of assistant foreman in May, his compensation as assistant foreraan is guaranteed. (Interpretations, Question No. 1, page 14.) However, Carrier contends that in May Claimant was displaced as foreman by an employee senior to him. A foreman's position was allegedly available to him in accordance with his seniority at Bridgeport, Texas, some 70 miles from his residence near Dallas which, Carrier asserts, he should have taken.

 Article IV, Section n, of the February 7 Agreement indicates that an employee will "be treated for the purpose of this Article as occupying the position which he elects to decline" if he fails to exercise seniority rights to obtain an available position "which does not require a change in residence." Since Bridgeport is far more than 30 miles distant from Claimant's residence, the contention that a change of residence would have been required, pursuant to Item 3 on page 11 of the Interpretations, cannot be rejected.






Dated: Washington, D. C.
        September/0 , 1969