I'm sure you are already aware of the Carrier's recent announcement to recover alleged "erroneous overpayments" to employees whose extra board guarantee payments were improperly calculated. It is my understanding that most of these cases involve employees used in emergency in other crafts, and the earnings in that other craft were not applied as earnings against the guarantee.

There are several Awards involving this issue of "overpayments." It has generally been held that the Carrier is not limited by the time limits rules in cases of mechanical error or "erroneous overpayment." However, these are typically cases in which, for instance, the employee claims $100 and the Carrier inadvertently pays $1,000. In such cases the Carrier may recover the overpayment outside of the usual time limit restrictions, so long as the recovery is made within a "reasonable" time. On the other hand, some Awards have held that if the Carrier processes and pays a claim submitted by an employee, and then later discovers that the claim was not valid under the controlling Agreement rule, the Carrier is barred from recovering such payment outside of the time limit rule.

The instant case is something of a hybrid in that the employee does not actually submit a guarantee claim. Rather, guarantees are automatically generated and calculated by the payroll system. However, it is the position of this Committee that since the Carrier is solely responsible for programming the system in the first place, these are not "erroneous overpayments." Rather, these are claims submitted (automatically) and processed in the Carrier's system, just as if a timekeeper had received a claim from an employee and calculated the claim manually, and then later learned that his understanding of the controlling Agreement rule was wrong. Certainly, the Carrier is not required to continue such payments in the future, but there is no justification for recovery of such past payments outside of the controlling time limits rules.

Employees who have had monies recovered under these circumstances should submit a stand-alone claim for the recovered amount "account improperly recovered outside of applicable time limits."