PARTIES Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes
 TO and
 DISPUTE Burlington Northern Railway Company
 STATEMENT "1. The Carrier violated the effective agreement
 OF CLAIM commencing March 13, 1981 and continuously
 thereafter when assigning clerical employees
 to perform janitorial service at Yakima,
 Washington Yard Office and other buildings
 at Yakima.
 2. The claimant, section man V.E. Tyler
 be allowed 8 hours each regular assigned
 work day, 40 hours per week, at the
 section man's straight time rate of
 pay, until Track Sub-Department Roster
 1 rank C employees are again assigned
 to perform these cleaning duties."
 FINDINGS
 Upon the whole record, after hearing, the Board finds that
 the parties herein are Carrier and Employees within the meaning
 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, and that this Board is
 duly constituted under Public Law 89-456 and has jurisdiction
 of the parties and the subject matter.

 The organization states that it is undisputed that Maintenance of Way employees have performed the janitorial service in dispute at Yakima for a long period of years, including prior to and after the merger of March 30, 1970. The property in question was former Northern Pacific property. The Organization alleges that it had been the practice under; the May 1, 1971 agreement and for many years prior to that agreement, to have a section .

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man perform the janitorial work in question. Further, according to the Petitioner, the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks had not claimed the work nor had the Carrier removed the janitorial position from under the scope rules of this organization's agreement. For this reason the Organization insists that the removal of the claimant from the janitorial position was a unilateral action carried out without consultation with the general chairman or a representative of the organization. The organization cites rules 1C, the note to rule 55, and rule 69C as relevant to this dispute.

 Contrary to Petitioner's position, Carrier does indeed disagree with respect to the past practice. According to Carrier, there is no question but that janitorial work of the type in question has been performed by various crafts and outside contractors over the years and not exclusively by employees of this organization. In fact, Carrier raised the question of evidence of Petitioner's assertion with respect to exclusivity while the matter was being handled on the property. Further, Carrier notes that there is no rule support whatever for claimant's or the organization's position. The Carrier relies, among other awards, on Third Division N.R.A.B. Award No. 19224 involving the same parties in which the Board held that to demonstrate exclusive rights to particular work, on the basis of past practice, the Organization-
 must prove existence or practice of exclusive assignment of such work to employees under the agreement on a system-wide basis. The Board went on to state:

 " Since in this particular case janitor's
 work is done throughout the system by
 more than one craft and in view of the
 fact that the Board finds the contention
 upon which the organization relies to
 be without merit, all parts of the claim
 are denied. "
 The Board finds a serious flaw in Petitioner's position. Without
 regard to the arguments raised, the premises for those arguments
 are without question the fact that the work in question had
 been performed by a section man over many years. The record
 does not bear that contention out. There is no evidence whatever
 in the record to indicate that the section man at the location
 in Yakima t.ad performed the janitorial. work at any time.There
 is merely assertion and not evidence. This has long been held
 to be iradequate in disputes such as this. The Board must
 conclude that since there is no factual basis for the conclusions
 and arguments made by Petitioner, the claim must fail.

 AWARD
              _ Claim denied.


              I.M. Lieberman, Neutral-Chairman


W. Hodynsky, Carrier Member F.H. Funk, Employee Member

 St. Paul, Minnesota Di S5CYl~ I --,l
 December /,,z , 1986