BETWEEN:

(the "Company")

AND

(the "Brotherhood")

SOLE ARBITRATOR: H. Carl Goldenberg, Q.C.

A hearing in this matter was held at Montreal, Que., on April 20,1967.

Messrs. S. Heimlich, L. Rhoe, C. Kalisvaart, W. Oakley, H. Fullbeck and W. Spencer of the Sleeping Dining and Parlor Car Department submitted claims for eight hours deducted from their time slips for a rest period on Train 2-52, November 2, 1965, which claims the Company denied.

On October 30, 1965, Mr. S. Heimlich and crew were on their regular assignment to the dining car, Toronto-Winnipeg an return, Trains 51-1 and 2-52. Their assignment terminated on arrival in Winnipeg on October 31. Part of the assignment was transferred to Winnipeg and Mr. Heimlich and crew were automatically displaced off Train 2-52, Winnipeg-Toronto, effective November 1.

The normal procedure in such cases is to deadhead the displaced crews back to their home terminal unless their services can be utilized on the return trip. As there was an extra car, a dinette, on Train 2-52 on November 1, Mr. Heimlich and crew were assigned to it. The train arrived in Toronto twenty hours late.

The computation of rest period deductions for late arrivals is set out in the collective agreement under "Interpretations and Understandings" dated July 10, 1952. Maintaining that the rules therein apply to employees on regular assignments only, the Company made a deduction for only one night in the case of the regular assigned Winnipeg crew in the dining car, and, in the case of Mr. Heimlich and crew in the dinette, a deduction for two nights en route due to late arrival because they were allegedly not covered by "assignment". The Company submits that it applied to them the provisions of Article 10 (m) 1, which reads as follows:

I find that Train 2-52, Winnipeg-Toronto, was a regular scheduled train with an extra car, and that, whether or not Mr. Heimlich and crew were "on an assignment" in the technical sense employed by the Company, there is no doubt that they were in fact assigned to the extra car, the dinette, in the same sense that the regular crew was assigned to the dining car. I do not find that, in the circumstances of the case, the terms of the agreement envisage discrimination in treatment between the two crews on the same train in respect of deductions for rest periods.

Accordingly, the grievance is upheld and the Company is ordered to compensate each of the members of the crew for eight hours deducted for a second night’s rest period on Train 2-52, November 2, 1965.

Signed at Montreal, Que., May 25, 1967.

Arbitrator

COMMENTARY: The award in favour of the employees establishes a principle that the collective agreement should not have deduction for rest rules which discriminate between two groups of employees in the same type of service.