SPECIAL BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT NO. 605


PARTIES ) Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company
 TO TI-7. ) and
 DISPUTE ) Transportation-Communication Employees Union
 QUESTION
 AT ISSUE: Does the Carrier violate Article Iv,
 Section 1 when it refuses to include
 holiday pay and/or pay for services
 performed on holidays in the normal
 rate of compensation of positions
 held as of October 1, 1964?
 OPINION
 OF BOARD: Claimant was a protected employee holding a regularly
 assigned relief position on October 1, 1964. The posi-
 tions upon which he relieved worked seven days a week including
 holida%·s. Consequently, when one of his five assigned days was
 a holiday, he worked.

 Claimant was displaced in I-larch, 1966, from his position and exercised his rights to a position working Monday through Friday, with Saturday and Sunday as rest days. According to the Organization, Claimant is entitled to holiday pay for those holidays upon which he would have worked had he retained his relief position. There were two such in May, 1966, his birthday and Decoration Day. Carrier contends that the "normal rate of compensation" of the relief position does not include holiday pay.

 Both parties cite Questions 4 and 5 of the Interpretations on Page 12 in support of their positions. Question 4 asks:

              What is the compensation guarantee of an employee who on October 1, 1964 held a regularly assigned relief position relieving on different positions with varying rates of pay?

                                      Award No. 2.zS

                                      Case No. TCU-63-:^7


The Answer is that the employee is guaranteed "the respective rates of the various positions on which he relieved during 1964." And the answer to Question 5 states that if an employee leaves his relief position, his guarantee is based upon "the weighted average of the rates of the positions on which he relieved during 1964."

 The reference to "rate" is significant. For example, in calculating a weighted average of various rates, it is implausible that more is expected than the calculation of the hourly rates for the various positions, exclusive of premium pay whether frequent or infrequent, sustained or casual. Similarly the interpretations on Page 11 and the top of Page 12 concern the compensation guarantees of Machine Operators. The Answers are that they are guaranteed "the respective rates of the various machines." Obviously there is no indication there that holiday work or premium pay of any kind is to be included.

 Occasional holiday work. is not definable as part of "the normal rate of compensation." It is a specific form of compensation, payable when holiday work is performed. If the parties meant to include holiday pay, they would not have referred simply to an average of the various rates at which a relief employee worked in 1964.

 It is revealing that Article Iv, Section 2, covering other than regularly assigned employees on October 1, 1964, deals with earnings, not rates. Thus the parties were cognizant of the different meanings attributable to the words they carefully employed in Article IV.

                        A W A R D


            The Answer to the Question is No.


Diilton Prieum~:i Neutral Member Washington, D. C. November /L , 1970

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