YARDMASTER DEPARTMENT AWARDS

AWARDS 100 - YARDMASTERS REQUIRED TO SERVICE LOCOMOTIVES WITH SUPPLIES AND TO PLACE/REMOVE REAR END MARKERS ON TRAINS

AWARD # REFEREE RAILROAD
Public Law Board 2719, Awd 34 Sickles Norfolk and Western

Public Law Board No. 2719, Award No. 34 (Sickles)

"There are conflicting Awards concerning Carriers' rights to assign duties to individuals in the Carriers' employ. However, this Board is persuaded by the line of Awards which have held that an assignment of duties must be reasonably related to the craft of the claiming Employee.

"We see no basis for the assignment of the type of work involved here to the Yardmaster craft. To be sure, the Agreement grants the Carrier the right to assign `other duties'; however, logic dictates to us that those duties must have some reasonable relationship to the traditionally accepted and understood work of the particular craft in question. See, for example, Fourth Division Award 2104 which prohibited a Carrier from ignoring craft lines when making assignments.

"Finally, we have noted that the Carrier raises the question of damages and notes that the Employee in question was performing work and being paid for the same time that he seeks damages in the claim. While there is not unanimity of opinion, this Board prefers the line of authority which has held that it is appropriate to grant damages when there has been a demonstrated violation of the Agreement. We, of course, do not sustain the claim in the areas where there is duplication. For instance, we have noted that the Claimant seeks compounded damages in certain instances for the same date. We do not approve duplicitous damages and restrict our Award to only one instance per claim date."


Yardmaster Subject Index

Last modified: April 29, 2005