boards and a copy mailed to the General Chairman and his assistant on the territory."

Rule 24(b-1) reads:

"(b-1) Other than Trackmen: Seniority rights of employes other than trackmen will be restricted to the territory over which one Supervisor or other official designated by the management has jurisdiction Said employes laid off on account of reduction in force will be permitted to displace junior employes in their own rank or in the lower ranks in their class in the territory over which one Supervisor or other official designated by the management has jurisdiction."

The afore-quoted rules restrict the seniority rights of certain employes, including drawbridge operators, to the territory over which one supervisor or other comparable officer has jurisdiction, and further restricts it to a specific seniority roster which is required to be separately complied for each class of employes. In view of the restrictions imposed by and under the last two cited rules, it is our position that all work within a specific territory and within the purpose for which a specific roster is compiled is restricted to the employes whose seniority is likewise restricted to a territory and to a roster. Our position in that respect is supported by Awards 2050, 4653, and 4667, which held:

AWARD 2050:-"Rule 4(a) provides that seniority rights of employes will be confined to their respective seniority rosters. This Board has repeatedly held that positions or work may not arbitrarily be removed from the confines of one seniority district and placed in another, as was here done. See Awards 99, 198, 199, 610, 612, 752, 753, 973, 1403, 1440, 1611, 1612, 1685, 1711, 1808, and 1892."

AWARD 4653:-"In Award 2585 we said, * * * employes on the respective roster have the prior right to claim and perform work falling within the scope or purpose for which the roster is set up.'".

AWARD 4667:-"This Board has consistently held that positions or work, within a specific seniority district must be reserved for employes holding seniority rights therein. See Awards Nos. 1808, 2050, 2988, 4534 and others, even though such work must be performed on overtime."

Rule 31 (b) reads:

"RULE 31-Guarantees

(b) Track, bridge, highway crossing, camp, trestle, tunnel, slide, cut, shop and equipment watchmen; watchmen at non-interlocked crossings; lampmen; pumpers, pan pumpers or pump engineers, drawbridge operators, tenders and helpers; track tank tenders and firemen, will not have their hours reduced below 8 per day, nor will their regularly established number of working days be reduced below 5 per work week."

Thus, we have a guarantee for drawbridge operators of five days of work each week and a guarantee of eight hours of work per day. Here the Carrier

violated that rule, when, without any reduction in the amount of drawbridge operator's work to be performed, it arbitrarily withheld work opportunities from drawbridge operators in violation of this work guarantee.

Rule 32 reads:

"Employes will be confined to work of their respective classifications insofar as consistent with economical maintenance and construction, but where required the foreman will have the right to assign anyone to any work there is to be done, that, in the foreman's judgement, he is competent of doing. This shall not be applied to require men of one class to regularly perform the work of another class, except as permitted in Rule 7 (e)."

The last sentence of the afore-quoted rule was very clearly violated in the instant case because the Carrier has here required employes of another class to regularly perform the work of the drawbridge operator's class. It will be noted that the only exception is that permitted in Rule 7(e). That exception relates to relief assignments and consequently, that particular exception is not present in the instant case.

Since the Carrier has agreed that it will not require employes of one class to regularly perform the work of another class, and since the parties have agreed to only one exception thereto, it is our position that the Carrier was clearly in violation thereof when it requires either an "operator-leverman" or "telegrapher-operator" to regularly perform the work of the drawbridge operator's class.

Keeping in mind that the aforesaid rule includes only one exception thereto, we wish to remind this Division of its consistent holdings that "where one or more exceptions to a rule are expressed, no other or further exceptions will be permitted to be implied."

See Awards 2009, 3825, 4551, 4854, 5415, 5464, 6005, 6167, 6718, 8093. Also please see First Division Award 14321.

The last quoted letter (page 6) represents the Carrier's position as expressed during the handling of this case on the property. Kindly note its contention that it was justified and entitled to discontinue the use of drawbridge operators even though all of the work of the positions remained, and further, that it was entitled to transfer such work to an operator-leverman on each of the three shifts in question. While the Carrier does not so state, it is obvious that a desire to economize motivated the Carrier's action. However, this Division has repeatedly and consistently held that, while the Carrier has a right to abolish positions when the work has diminished, it must assign all remaining work of the position to employes holding seniority rights thereto. A typical example of this Division's holdings in that respect is set forth in Award 6187, which held:

"Carrier may, when in the interests of efficiency and economy its operations so require, abolish positions and rearrange the work thereof unless it has limited its right to do so by the provisions of its collective Agreements. However, when doing so, the work of the positions abolished must be assigned to and be performed by the class of employes that are entitled thereto under the Agreements. See Awards 1814, 4939, 5318, 5331 and 5515."

Also see Award 1831, which held:

"We must assume from the fact that, at the time the agreement, with its appended schedule, was entered into necessity did exist at Plattsburg for the position or night chief dispatcher, otherwise the position would not have been included.

A further reasonable, and we think inescapable, assumption is that necessity for the continuance of the position exists unless and until it is shown competently that such necessity does not longer exist. A mere abolition of the position and creation of a new trick dispatcher's position by the carrier is not a sufficient showing of a lack of such necessity."

In the instant case, Carrier has not shown or attempted to show that the need no longer exists for the continuance of the drawbridge operators' positions. Here, as in the case decided by Award 1831, a mere abolition of the position and creation of a new position by the Carrier is not a sufficient showing of lack of the necessity for the continuance of drawbridge operators' positions. In Award 5653, this Division held that the Carrier must do what is required by the agreement, even if it is more expensive and inconvenient to do so. This Division held that economy of operations is not a factor to be considered in cases of this kind, holding that the Carrier has the right to achieve economies only if it does not violate the agreement in so doing. See Awards 180, 231, 388, 434, 496, 554, 2659, 3524, 3659, 4210, 4723, 4939, 6945.

This Division has further held that work can be transferred from under the scope of one agreement to another only by negotiation with the parties whose agreement presently covers the work which is to be transferred. Here the Carrier did not make this transfer by negotiation with the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, and thus violated the principles enunciated in Awards 416, 450, 451, 452, 456, 457, 458, 459, 485, 490, 510, 553, 554, 556, 565, 594, 602, 607, 609, 610, 636, 638, 639, 649, 4387, 4210, and 4042. Actually, the transfer of this work represented only a paper abolishment of the positions of drawbridge operators, such as was referred to in the excerpts quoted on pages 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 of Award 4576.

We have previously referred to Award 4653, and we wish to make some verbatim quotes therefrom:

"It should be borne in mind that Carrier is obligated to do what, by its Agreements, it has contracted to do, although that may not always be the easiest or most economical manner of doing it.

"It is true that Carrier on April 16, 1946 sought to discontinue the position to which Claimant had been assigned but such act was without force or effect as it was contrary to the express provisions of the Mediation Agreement as all six relief days for which the position had been established continued to exist."

In addition to the many awards from which we have hereinbefore quoted or cited, we wish to invite attention to several others which add additional support to the instant claim. We quote excerpts therefrom for the ready reference of this Board.

AWARD 554:-"In this, as in other claims, the Board submits that no question has arisen as to the Carrier's right to abolish positions that have been negotiated into or are governed by agreements between the parties when there is no work to be performed, or to effect economies when such action is effected in an orderly manner. However, the Carrier is not justified in removing work which still continues to exist, from employes covered by one agreement, without making such change a matter of negotiation and agreement between the parties.

In this instant case the facts are evidenced that in abolishing the position of motor car operator in Bridge and Building Department Gang No. 1, which had been specifically negotiated into the agreement covering rates of pay, and under a classification recognized over a period of years as properly applicable to the work performed, and assigning the work which still continued to exist to an employe, or employes, of a department not covered by the agreement between the parties, the Carrier violated the terms and spirit of the existing agreements."

AWARD 1140:-"It apears that for many years crossing watchmen have been within the scope rule of the wage agreement between the carrier and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes.

Still, for twenty years, or longer, the carrier assigned only switch tenders, occupied in part at the point involved with duties pertaining to switch tending, to discharge the duties of crossing watchmen as well.

"We are disposed to the view that regardless of what in the first instance may have prompted the carrier to combine the duties of crossing watchmen and switch tenders at the point in question, and to assign switch tenders to the discharge of the combined duties, and however long the practice continued, the carrier's resort to the scope rule in 1937, in the circumstances appearing, constituted such recognition of the application and control of that rule, that thereafter, proceeding unilaterally, its attempt to depart therefrom as here, was violative thereof."

AWARD 3955:-"It is a fundamental rule that work of a class covered by an agreement belongs to those for whose benefit the contract was made. A delegation of such work to others not covered by the Agreement is violative of the Agreement. Under the rules such work must be given to available employes under the agreement, even if overtime pay is required, before it can be assigned to one outside the Agreement."

AWARD 4390:-"Where work is within the scope of a collective agreement, and not within any exception contained in that agreement or any exception recognized as inherently existent as hereinbefore discussed, we feel obliged to adhere to the fundamental rule that the work belongs to the employes under the agreement and that it may not be farmed out with impunity.

This work was clearly within the scope rule of the Maintenance of Way Agreement and belonged to Bridge and Building Department employes under that Agreement. The general rule is that a Carrier may not contract with others for the performance of work embraced

within the scope rule of a collective agreement made for the benefit of employes under such agreement. Award 3251."

AWARD 4845:-"The construction of buildings is work included in that which is traditionally and customarily performed by maintenance of way employes.

AWARD 5043:-"Whatever it may be on other carriers, the practice on this carrier has been to use section laborers at outlying points to do this work at section laborers' pay. The Maintenance of Way Organization appears to have made no objection throughout the years. There being no express and exclusive assignment of the work within the scope of another working agreement, the practice cannot be said to have been nullified by agreement. The contention of the Carrier that an enforceable practice exists is sustained."

In Award 11752, involving these same parties in a similar dispute, this Division sustained the Employes' position and held:

"It is the contention of the Petitioner that for several years a position of Crossing Watchman has been maintained to provide crossing protection work at Elmsford, New York on the Hudson Division of the New York District; that the position was established and maintained in conformance with the provisions of the agreement between the parties to this dispute, that the subject position was assigned working hours from 6:20 A. M. to 6:50 P. M. daily, except Saturdays and Sundays and the incumbent thereof, as of March 1, 1958, was the Claimant Fred Richter: that effective March 7, 1958, Claimant Richter was instructed to discontinue crossing watchman's work at Elmsford and the duties of his position were unilaterally transferred to Telegraphers who hold no seniority rights within the scope of the agreement here controlling, that Claimant Richter in the exercise of his seniority displaced Crossing Watchman A. Chairlitti who also makes claim for reimbursement of monetary loss suffered by him due to Carrier's violation of the agreement.

Carrier does not deny that for some years a position of Crossing Watchman has been maintained at Elmsford; Carrier asserts that prior to June 6, 1957, Carrier employed an agent at this station to supervise its operation and also employed two crossing watchmen whose job it was to operate the manually controlled crossing gates; that when no watchmen were on duty at Elmsford it was the responsibility of a trainman to flag his own train or engine over the crossing; that on June 6, 1957, due to a decrease in the number of trains passing over this Division and through Elmsford, one of the existing crossing watchman's job was abolished and the remaining watchman's duty hours set; that due to further curtailment of trains, as of March 10, 1958, the traffic over Elmsford crossing consisted of only four passenger and two freight train movements Monday through Friday inclusive; to further effect a more economical operation in this Division, the crossing watchmen's job was abolished at Elmsford on that date and the agent at said station required to operate the crossing gates while on duty.

"Petitioner contends to the contrary that work of the position remained and under the terms of the agreement that work belonged to the crossing watchmen.