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ove wi

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aid Pno e r

e rtoth _ pletion of $ hours of service,

Section 3 - Conversion to Local Rate

Section 4 - Engine Exchange (Including, Adding and Subtracting of Units)

~Tn OtherRefat~t~r itraries

...

Section 5 - Duplicate Time Payments

(a) Duplicate time payments, including arbitraries and special allowances that are expressed in time or miles or fixed amounts of money, shall not apply to employees whose seniority in engine or train service is established on or after November I, 1985.

(b) Duplicate tune payments, including arbittarzcs and special allowances that are expressed in time or milts or fixed amounts of money, nest eliminated by this Agreement shall not be subject to general, wet-of-living or other fona-A of wage izlczea9eS.

The Carrier and the BLE are also parties to a 1992 Mediation Agreement. Articles Iv of this

Agreement adopts language from the 1991 BLE National Agreement (to which the Carrier was not

a party) that is identical to Article IV of the 1986 National Agreement, but makes additional

(c) The number of hours that must lapse before overtime begins on a trip in through

freight or through passenger service is calculated by dividing the miles of the ig ui or

the number of miles encompassed inn basic day in that class o seance whichever is

greater, by the appropriate overtime divisor. Thus effective October 1, 1992,

overtime on a trip in through freiBftt service of 125 miles will begin after 8 hours

and 28 minutes 25/14.75 = 8.4~ flours). In through freight service, overtime will

not be paid prior to the completion of 8 hays of service. (emphasis added)

' Subsequent to the 1986 Agreement the Carrier has based its overtime payments on all miles

paid as opposed to the distance of the trip run or operated by tie engineer. Some nine years

subsequent to the 1985 Agreement, the BLE, in 1995, began filing claims, socking overtime pay

based on the running miles of the trip. 'fire TJ77J had previously filed similar claims relating to

identical contract language in their 1985 National Agreement which claims were denied in Award

No. 9 of Ply 5638 (October 28, 1995). The Bi.E claims west progressed to PIrB 5764, and in

Award No. Z of that board the Organization's claims were sustained. Ttse claims presented in the

case before the Board encompass 83 individual overtime claims during the period of July to

October of 1997.

The parties have presented an extensive record to this Board. We believes that the outcome

of this case is determined by the meaning of the terms "...miles of the nip" as used in Article IV,

Section 2 (c) as emphasized above.

We find that the terms "miles of the trip" ere according their plain and ordinary meaning

the mils between the points traveled by an engineer in road service. Thus the `miles of the nip_

of an engineer who opezates a train from Two Harbors to lYlinorca and return would be 173.1

miles.

Article IV, Pay Rules, sets forth the components of an engineer's pay which include tire

basic daylover miles, mad overtime and arbitraries and special allowances.

Preparation time and inspection time am payments made by the ANf&Iit and are expressed

in tents of miles and payable at the frozen rate tinder Article Ice, Section 5. When an engineer has

to wait for a long period of time at a mine for his or her train the engineer is paid for this time; this

tune waiting is converted into miles, and these miles arc paid at the fzozen rate as arbitraries and special allowances under Article N, Section S - Duplicate Time Payments. The authors of the 1986 Agreement recognized that duplicate time payments would exist for identified employees and they separated these payments out for treatment under Section 5 of Article IV, The Carrier is asserting the right to interpret Section 2 of Article f V to include in the numerator in addition to the miles of the trip actually operated by the engineer, all other allowances expressed in miles such as preparation and inspection arbittaties, intermediate delay and other arbitraries. The plain meaning of the language "miles of the trip" simply will not support such as interpretation. If the authors of the language of Article IV Section 2 intended to include in addition to the miles of the trip operated by the engineer all of the duplicate time payments expressed in terms of miles, which the authors recognized existed in Section 5 of the Pay Rules, then language in some way similar to "YniIes paid on any trip by virtue of the various tales of this agzcemeat" would have been used by the authors of the Agreement language. No such "miles paid" language was in fact used, and this Board has no authority to insert such language into the Agreement Prior to the 1986 Rule 7 of the parties Agreement covered Overtime for Road Service. It stated:

Role 7

Overtimes in Road Service

Overtime will be paid in all road service wizen the time on duty exceeds a tune arrived at by dividing the milers paid on any kip by virtue of the various rules of this agreement by 12 and one-half (12-iT1). When overtime is paid on this basis, it will be paid on the minute basis at a rate of not less than three-sixteenths (3116) of the daily rate.

Interpretation:

The miles paid on any trip by virtue of the various rules of this agreement is understood to mean the miles run, and in addition the miles allowed for all allowances such as preparatory and inspection tune, delay time, intermediate allowances and arbrtranes. When the parties wont to national handling which resulted in the 2986 National Agrcezrxat, the Carrier received all of the benefits and the obligations of that Agreement. After the 1986 Agreement the overtime divisor was no longer 12-1/2 as expressed in Rule 7, it was 13.0, and is currently

-r4.5 AO. Co(8S- yqw o .,()b 16.25. Road service overtime is no longer governed by Rule 7 or the interpretation. of that Rule. No exception or savings clause exists is Article N of the 1986 Agreement or the 1992 Agreement that preserved Rule 7 and allows the Carrier to pay overtime based oa "miles paid".

The Carrier paid engineers on a "Miles paid" balls for nine years, which was contrary to the clear language of the Agreement. Such cannot after the altar language of the Agreement. Alter fait consideration of the entire record we must sustain this claim.

AWARD