Q&A 18 Dispute Award
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
This has reference to my memo to you of July 2, 2015 advising that the 2003 National Agreement Article V Disputes Committee had heard our dispute involving Q&A 18 claims payments of trip rates for extra engineers performing hours of service relief on trip rated jobs. I advised that I would let you know as soon as I received a determination of the decision of the arbitrator. Attached, please find a copy of a letter from BLET President Pierce under date of August 14, 2015 and a copy of the Award dated August 13, 2015 issued by Neutral Member – Arbitrator Ed Benn. In his decision, Mr. Benn denied our claims on the basis that there was no evidence that the Hours of Service Relief performed by Extra Engineers was used in calculating the trip rates for the various pools that were trip rated under Article 5 of the 2003 National BLET Agreement. He also cited the fact the Hours of Service Relief is not trip rated. In truth, there was no evidence that the trip information for Extra Engineers performing Hours of Service Relief was used in the calculation of trip rates because that was in fact the case. The data for developing the trip rates included only trip information for pool freight engineers (and extra engineers protecting pool freight engineer vacancies). In accordance with the authority of the decision of the National Disputes Committee we will be withdrawing the Q&A18 claims of record and we will not entertain any more such claims for appeal.
Fraternally,
J.L. Dayton
General Chairman – BLET
WRGCA