(a) Except as is permitted by this rule, work will be performed by employees in the craft to which such work is now assigned. Notwithstanding any other rules to the contrary, in order to efficiently complete an integrated work assignment involving the work of two or more crafts, an employee in one craft may be required to do the work of another craft for short periods of time, provided that the employee is qualified to perform the work. The work that may be required to be done under this clause shall include the operation of any equipment or machinery necessary for the completion of the integrated work assignment;

(b) The maximum period of time that an employee in one craft may be assigned to do the work of another under paragraph (a) shall be limited to thirty (30) minutes in respect of any one such integrated work assignment;

(c) Within sixty (60) days of the signing of this award, the company shall identify to the appropriate General Chairmen which integrated work assignments will be required to be performed under this incidental work rule. Any subsequent change to those integrated work assignments shall be communicated to the General Chairman or the Local Union Representative concerned prior to implementation;

(d) No employee shall be laid off as a direct result of the application of this incidental work rule;

(e) Notwithstanding any of the above, this incidental work rule shall not be implemented unless and until substantially the same provisions are made to apply to those unions presently represented by the Canadian Council of Railway Shopcraft Unions.

Alleged violation of Rule 62 of Agreement 12.40 when, on July 28, 1989, Machinists performed predispatch and trip inspection duties at Saskatoon Motive Power Shop, Saskatchewan.

On July 28, 1989, during the 08:00 to 16:00 hour shift, Machinists performed trip inspections on units 4724, 5282, 1406, 1417, 4770, 4720, 4721, 1607, 1078, 1160 and 1130. The Brotherhood also indicates that Machinists performed predispatch duties on a consist of three units, numbers 4770, 4720 and 4721.

The Brotherhood contends that this predispatch inspection of consist and trip inspections is not an incidental task as contemplated by Arbitrator Larson in his award of April 11, 1988. The Brotherhood further contends that the checking of lights, switches, radios and cab amenities as indicated in the incidental Work Rule Assignment MP 111, or the change out of burnt light bulbs including sealed beams as indicated in the Incidental Work Rule Assignment MP 112, has always been part of the predispatch and trip inspection, and does not involve any other craft. It is also the Brotherhood’s contention that a trip and predispatch inspection requires the completion of a number of separate tasks, which cannot be considered as integrated.

The Brotherhood requests that the "practice" of assigning Machinists to perform trip inspections and/or predispatch inspection cease and that eight hours’ pay at time and one half be paid to the eligible electrician on July 28, 1989, on the overtime list at the Saskatchewan Motive Power Shop.

The Company does not agree to the Brotherhood’s contentions and has declined its request.

[The incidental work rule issue] turned out to be a major issue between the parties … The issue originated in a proposal by the companies to delete the Jurisdictional Understanding Rules in the various shop crafts collective agreements and evolved in negotiations to a proposal that would have the effect of permitting the companies to make certain work assignments across craft boundaries.

… The work jurisdiction of each craft is described in the "Craft Special Rules" which are appended to each collective agreement. The Rules were first introduced into the agreements in 1910. The basic wording found in the current agreements was introduced around 1920 and has remained virtually unchanged with only minor revisions since that time.

… The companies argued that the Craft Special Rules and the Jurisdictional Understanding Rules have served to build walls around the crafts and have contributed vastly to an unproductive utilization of the work force.

… A number of examples were given, designed to demonstrate that the rigid craft lines involve inherent inefficiencies, particularly where job assignments require more than one craftsman. The evidence generally showed that one craftsman is invariably required to wait for another in order to complete his work. Productive time is also lost when a craftsman is required to travel to another place of work even in the same shop to do work of an incidental nature.

… I should like to make it clear that I do not accept that the Jurisdictional Understanding Rules should be deleted from the collective agreements. Indeed, I consider that proposal [by the companies] to be inconsistent with the essential nature of the incidental work rule advocated by the companies themselves … which is to preserve the work of the various crafts but to stipulate that for certain limited purposes craft boundaries may be crossed … (emphasis added)

… on Friday, July 28, 1989, due to vacation scheduling, out of the 12 unionized employees who were working on that day, only one was an electrician, Mr. David W. Roberts.

On the shift in question, Shop Management determined that the performance of certain electrical work on Caboose number 79849 was a priority, and Electrician Roberts was therefore assigned to that particular assignment on the day in question.

29. On the 8:00-16:00 shift of July 28, 1989, Electrician David Roberts, normally assigned to running work, was removed from that job at the start of the shift and re-assigned to the Car Shop to repair broken conduit and wiring on caboose no. 79849. That left the Diesel Shop without any electrician for the entire eight-hour shift.

30. During the course of the shift, trip inspections were performed on some eleven (11) locomotives on the trip pit, and a predispatch was performed on a consist of three locomotives. All these assignments were performed by two machinists, one of them being assigned to work alongside the single machinist who normally worked with Electrician Roberts

31. Prior to this occasion, when the electrician was absent from work or otherwise not available for trip pit duties, another electrician would be assigned in his place, if necessary by means of an overtime call.

32. Subsequently, for a period of time, this initial incident turned into a "practice", with the wholesale removal of electricians from trip inspections and predispatch work. Some time in 1990, this practice was partially reversed. The current practice appears to be the "blanking of shifts" – that is the failure to call a replacement electrician when one is absent, or on statutory holidays, etc., and instead assigning most of the duties involved to machinists.

33. The instant grievance, as set out in the Joint Statement of Issue, contests both the particular assignment of work on July 28, 1989, as well as the subsequent "practice" which persists to date, and requests relief on both counts.

The word "efficiently" was not intended to constitute a counterpart to "timely" but was, nevertheless, intended to qualify the application of the rule. If an integrated assignment cannot be accomplished more efficiently by one "main craftsman" within the terms of the rule than by using several craftsmen, the incidental work rule cannot be applied to that integrated work assignment.

The intention was to improve productivity in the shops but where that cannot be accomplished through the application of the incidental work rule and it would be just as efficient to sequence the tasks through several craftsmen, the companies are not entitled to assign work across craft boundaries.

16. What follows, then, is that...there must be a "main" (or "primary") craftsman who is responsible for the overall assignment and performs the bulk of the work, in addition to one or more "incidental" craftsmen who perform auxiliary aspects which cumulatively require no more than thirty minutes to complete.

17. Furthermore, before the rule will permit the main craftsman to perform the work of the incidental craftsmen, it must be demonstrated that such a transfer of work is necessary "to efficiently complete" the assignment. Note here, for later reference, that even given this prerequisite of enhanced efficiency of the assignment, only the single "main craftsman" is permitted to perform the incidental work. It is a trite observation that the entire edifice of the rule – both its text and the explanatory remarks of the Arbitrator – does not permit the replacement of the incidental craftsmen by some other, additional employees apart from the main craftsman himself.

41. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the effect of the Incidental Work Rule – even if enhanced efficiency of the assignment can be adequately demonstrated – is only to permit the "main craftsman" to perform the "incidental work" in addition to his own work That is the unequivocal statement made by paragraph (a) of the rule and supported by Arbitrator Larson’s supplementary ruling on pages 28-30 of the June 17 [supplementary] award. Under no circumstances, as argued earlier, is it open to the company to remove the electrician and replace him – in whole or in part – by an additional employee of another craft. Yet that is precisely what was done on July 28, 1989. In this respect, it does not matter whether the "new" machinist performed all the electrical work, or he assumed the "old" machinist’s tasks to free the latter to replace the electrician, or any combination thereof