SPECIAL BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT NO 605
PARTIES ) Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
TO THE )
DISPUTE ) and
Union Pacific Railroad Company
QUESTION AT ISSUE:
Is Carrier's use of non-covered employees to perform work covered by the
Signalmen's Agreement considered a "transfer of work" as that term is used in Article
III, Section 1 of the February 7,
1965
Agreement?
OPINION OF
THE BOARD: On May 2,
1991,
the Carrier tendered the Organization written notice of
its intent to transfer work consisting of the wiring of six signal equipment
houses from the Signal Shop at Pocatello, Idaho, to the Sedalia, Missouri Signal Shop. The Carrier
cited Article III, Section 2 of the February 7,
1965
Job Stabilization Agreement in its notice. The
Carrier explained that Signal employees at the Pocatello Shop were burdened with an excess
workload while the Sedalia Shop had unused capacity. Thus, the Carrier sought to equalize the
workload between the two shops so that it could more quickly accomplish the wiring work. The
Sedalia Shop employees performed the wiring work from August
5
through August 8,
1991.
The Pocatello Shop is located on the original Union Pacific while the Sedalia Shop is located
on the former Missouri Pacific Railroad territory. The Organization represents employees at both
shops although signal employees on the former Missouri Pacific are covered by a schedule
agreement separate from signal employees on the original Union Pacific.
AWARD NO. 503
CASE NO. SG-45-W
Contending that the Carrier violated the applicable scope rule, the Organization initiated and
progressed a claim to the National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB) Third Division.' At the
NRAB, the Carrier argued that this Disputes Committee had exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate the
claim. In
NRAB Third Division Award No. 30722 (Wesman),
the NRAB deferred any ruling on the
claim until this Disputes Committee could first ascertain whether it had primary and exclusive
jurisdiction over the dispute. In
Award No. 30722,
the Board wrote:
The instant claim involves invocation by Carrier of the February 7, 1965
Mediation Agreement between the Parties. It is not a case of first impression.
Similar claims were presented in Awards 52 and 56 A, B, & C, on Public
Law Board No. 4716, involving these same parties. Nothing in this case
distinguishes it from the prior cases. In Award 52 the Board held:
While prompt resolution of disputes before Public Law
Boards is the ultimate goal, such resolution may not be made
at the expense of adherence to proper procedural and
jurisdictional considerations. Accordingly, the Board finds
that, until the ancillary dispute over the Parties' interpretation
of the February 7, 1965 Agreement is resolved, we must defer
to the procedures described in `Article VII - Disputes
Committee' of that Agreement. Should this matter return to
the Board once the Disputes Committee's decision has been
rendered. the Board will . . . .proceed with a determination of
the merits of the case under the current Agreement between
the Parties.
This Board has exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute if the Carrier's transfer of the
wiring work constituted or was associated with an operational, technological or organizational
change as specified in Article III, Section 1 of the February 7, 1965 Agreement. The first sentence
'
It is difficult to conceptualize the existence of any scope rule violation when the work in dispute was performed
by covered employees represented by the Organization.
-2-
AWARD NO. 503
CASE NO. SG-45-W
of Article III. Section I clearly ties the Carrier's right to transfer work to a technological, operational
or organizational change. Sections I and 2 of Article III of the February 7, 1965 Agreement read:
Section 1
The organizations recognize the right of the carriers to make technological,
operational and organizational changes, and in consideration of the protective
benefits provided by this Agreement the carrier shall have the right to transfer
work and/or transfer employees throughout the system which do not require
the crossing of craft lines. The organizations signatory hereto shall enter into
such implementing agreements with the carrier as may be necessary to
provide for the transfer and use of employees and the allocation or
rearrangement of forces made necessary by the contemplated change. One
of the purposes of such implementing agreements shall be to provide a force
adequate to meet the carrier's requirements.
Section I
Except as provided in Section 3 hereof, the carrier shall give at least 60 days'
(90 days in cases that will require a change of an employee's residence)
written notice to the organization involved of any intended change or changes
referred to in Section I of this Article whenever such intended change or
changes are of such a nature as to require an implementing agreement as
provided in said Section 1. Such notice shall contain a full and adequate
statment [sic] of the proposed change or changes, including an estimate of the
number of employees that will be affected by the intended change or changes.
Any change covered by such notice which is not made within a reasonable
time following the service of the notice, when all of the relevant
circumstances are considered, shall not be made by the carrier except after
again complying with the requirements of this Section 2.
Upon careful consideration, this Board finds that the transfer of wiring work involving just
six signal equipment houses from one signal shop to another signal shop on the same merged system
does not constitute an operational or organizational change within the meaning of Article 111, Section
1 of the February 7, 1965 Agreement. Instead, the subject matter of this case is more properly
-3-
AWARD NO. 503
CASE NO. SG-45-W
characterized as a possible scope rule violation governed by the provisions in the applicable working
agreements.
While the parties to the February 7, 1965 Agreement did not precisely define the meaning
of an operational change (or for that matter, a technological or organizational change), a change in
operation inherently connotes an alteration more integral to how work is performed than the transfer
of a modicum of work from one signal shop to another. In this case, the manner of performing the
wiring work did not change and there was no change in how either shop operated. Moreover, the
record indicates that the Carrier simply reassigned certain work based upon the unused productive
capacity at the Sedalia Shop. All of these circumstances strongly suggest that the Carrier's activity
was not predicated on an operational or an organizational change.
This Board stresses that it need not definitively define what activity constitutes technological,
organizational or operational changes. We narrowly hold that evidence of any such change is not
contained within this particular record.
Therefore. this Board lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate the claim.
AWARD
The Answer to the Question at Issue is No.
Dated: September 24, 1996
13
ae-,-Z~