This grievance concerns a claim by the Union that the Company failed to assign the appropriate number of spare groundmen to work in conventional auxiliary crane service at the site of a derailment at Kinsella, Alberta. The facts giving rise to the grievance, and the issues to be resolved, are reflected in the Dispute and Joint Statement of Issue filed at the hearing, which are as follows:

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The material before the Arbitrator establishes that an auxiliary crane is a high-capacity crane which travels exclusively by rail and which is utilized to lift cars and locomotives at the site of derailments. Prior to August of 1976 Calder Yard had two conventional auxiliary cranes, each with its own wrecking service crew. In August of 1976 one of the auxiliary outfits was taken out of service, as the Company had acquired a mobile crane, which travels either by road or by rail, for use at Calder. It is common ground that the mobile crane performs similar work to that done by auxiliary crane. At the time of the change the auxiliary positions were abolished, and by bulletin #72, dated August 9, 1976, some 15 positions were posted, all of them relating to service on the single auxiliary crew remaining in place at Calder Yard.

The auxiliary crane at Calder Yard, in Edmonton, is part of a wrecking outfit which consists of a total of 17 cars, in addition to the crane, which can be dispatched to wreck sites as needed. According to locally negotiated policy, the minimum complement of staff assigned to a conventional auxiliary outfit is to include seven carmen. As reflected in the joint statement, nine carmen were assigned to the auxiliary outfit dispatched at Kinsella.

The thrust of the Union's position is that the Company was required to assign five carmen to work in conjunction with the spare conventional wrecking crane which was also sent to Kinsella. The spare crane is one of four such cranes which the Company has located at various points across Canada. It is not disputed that the spare crane at Calder is utilized in Western Canada, and has occasionally been used for training purposes. The issue raised by the grievance is whether the spare crane is to be considered a conventional auxiliary crane for the purposes of the collective agreement, so that the Company is under an obligation to assign the number of carmen provided for in the collective agreement for service with an auxiliary crane, to work in conjunction with the spare crane.

The Union's claim is based on the application of Appendix IX of Agreement 12.35 with reads as follows:

Part of the Union's case is based upon an exchange of correspondence which it submits confirming its position that spare cranes are to be given the same manpower as conventional auxiliary cranes. It appears that in September of 1984 the issue was raised by the Union's System General Chairman, Mr. S.A. Horodyski in the following letter addressed to the Chief of Motive Power and Car Equipment of the Company:

Mr. Mizrahi replied to Mr. Horodyski in the following terms on September 26, 1984:

The Union submits that the response provided by Mr. Mizrahi supports its view that the parties are in agreement that spare cranes ought to be treated as conventional auxiliary trains for the purposes of manpower assignments. The Arbitrator has some difficulty accepting that interpretation of the letter of September 26, 1984. The second paragraph of Mr. Mizrahi's letter seems to indicate that when one of the spare auxiliary cranes is utilized to replace regularly assigned cranes which are out of service there is to be no departure from the normal manning practices. The letter does not directly address, however, the circumstance which arose at Kinsella, where a spare crane is used as a supplement, working in conjunction with a conventional auxiliary crane.

That circumstance is arguably addressed, however, indirectly, in the final paragraph of the letter of September 26, 1984. If anything, however, the words used by Mr. Mizrahi would suggest that the use of spare cranes as supplements to conventional cranes working on a wreck site would give rise to different manning practices. The Arbitrator cannot, on a careful review of the correspondence, glean from the Company's response any agreement or understanding that when a spare crane is assigned to supplement a conventional auxiliary crane, it is to be manned in the same manner as a crane which is part of an auxiliary outfit By the same token, it would appear clear that where the spare crane is used to replace a conventional auxiliary crane which is out of service (which was not the case at Kinsella) it is to be manned in the same manner as provided under the local agreement respecting the conventional auxiliary crane.

In the Arbitrator's view the facts of the instant case are to be distinguished from those reviewed by Arbitrator Weatherill in an award involving the same parties dated March 5, 1980. In that case wrecking work was being performed by the Senneterre auxiliary crane, when the Company ordered the Jonquière auxiliary crane to the site to assist in the wrecking work. The Arbitrator found that in that circumstance the collective agreement contemplated that the entire crew for the Jonquière crane was to be dispatched, in accordance with the established practice. That case, however, involved the assignment of employees to work in conjunction with an established conventional auxiliary crane. in that circumstance the Arbitrator concluded, quite properly in my opinion, that the established conventions with respect to the manning of such a crane must be respected. That case did not, however, involve the use of a spare crane, as occurred in the circumstances at hand.

As appears from the material reviewed, since the mid 1970s the parties have been careful in establishing local practice with respect to the manning of cranes permanently assigned to conventional auxiliary service. In the Arbitrator's view, as reflected in Appendix IX of Agreement 12.35, the phrase "conventional auxiliary service" refers to the use of conventional auxiliary cranes which are a normal component of an established wrecking outfit. There is nothing in the language of Appendix IX, however, nor, it appears, in the practice of the parties, which would support the position of the Union that a spare regional auxiliary crane is to treated as a crane in established conventional auxiliary service when it is utilized other than as a replacement for such equipment.

In my view any uncertainty with respect to the competing positions of the parties is resolved by the fact that since 1976 there has been only a single bulletined auxiliary service crew established at Calder Yard, notwithstanding the presence of the spare crane, over a substantial number of years. Without commenting on whether it would have been open to the Union to grieve the failure of the Company to establish a permanent second auxiliary assignment at Calder Yard, the fact that it did not do so indicates that the parties did not view each and every assignment of the spare crane to wrecking work as constituting auxiliary service for the purposes of Appendix IX of the collective agreement.

For the foregoing reasons the Arbitrator cannot find that there has been any violation of the collective agreement. As the spare crane was not substituting in conventional auxiliary service while working at Kinsella, the Company was under no obligation to assign a crew consist for conventional auxiliary service to it.

For the foregoing reasons the grievance must be dismissed.

DATED at Toronto this 27th day of July, 1992.