RAILROAD RETIREMENT ACT OF 1974 (as amended through January 1996) AN ACT To amend an Act entitled "An Act to establish a retirement system for employees of carriers subject to the Interstate Commerce Act, and for other purposes," approved August 29, 1935. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, DEFINITIONS SECTION 1. For the purposes of this Act- (i) any carrier by railroad subject to the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board under part A of subtitle IV of title 49, United States Code; (ii) any company which is directly or indirectly owned or controlled by, or under common control with, one or more employers as defined in paragraph (i) of this subdivision, and which operates any equipment or facility or performs any service (except trucking service, casual service, and the casual operation of equipment or facilities) in connection with the transportation of passengers or property by railroad, or the receipt, delivery, elevation, transfer in transit, refrigeration or icing, storage, or handling of property transported by railroad; (iii) any receiver, trustee, or other individual or body, judicial or otherwise, when in the possession of the property or operating all or any part of the business of any employer as defined in paragraph (i) or (ii) of this subdivision; (iv) any railroad association, traffic association, tariff bureau, demurrage bureau, weighing and inspection bureau, collection agency, and any other association, bureau, agency, or organization which is controlled and maintained wholly or principally by two or more employers as defined in paragraph (i), (ii), or (iii) of this subdivision and which is engaged in the performance of services in connection with or incidental to railroad transportion; and (v) any railway labor organization, national in scope, which has been or may be organized in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, and its State and National legislative committees, general committees, insurance departments, and local lodges and divisions, established pursuant to the constitution or bylaws of such organization. (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision (1) of this subsection, the term "employer" shall not include (i) any company by reason of its being engaged in the mining of coal, the supplying of coal to an employer where delivery is not beyond the mine tipple, and the operation of equipment or facilities therefor, or in any of such activities; and (ii) any street, interurban, or suburban electric railway, unless such railway is operating as a part of a general dieselrailroad system of transportation, but shall not exclude any part of the general diesel-railroad system of transportation now or hereafter operated by any other motive power. The Surface Transportation Board is hereby authorized and directed upon request of the Railroad Retirement Board, or upon complaint of any party interested, to determine after hearing whether any line operated by electric power falls within the terms of this paragraph. (b)(1) The term "employee" means (i) any individual in the service of one or more employers for compensation, (ii) any individual who is in the employment relation to one or more employers, and (iii) an employee representative: Provided, however, That the term "employee" shall include an employee of a local lodge or division defined as an employer in subsection (a) only if he was in the service of or in the employment relation to an employer as defined in paragraph (i) of subsection (a)(1) on or after August 29, 1935. (2) The term "employee" shall not include any individual while such individual is engaged in the physical operations consisting of the mining of coal, the preparation of coal, the handling (other than movement by rail with standard railroad locomotives) of coal not beyond the mine tipple, or the loading of coal at the tipple. (c) The term "employee representative" means any officer or official representative of a railway labor organization other than a labor organization included in the term "employer" as defined in subsection (a) who before or after August 29, 1935, was in the service of an employer as defined in subsection (a) and who is duly authorized and designated to represent employees in accordance with the Railway Labor Act, as amended, and any individual who is regularly assigned to or regularly employed by such officer or official representative in connection with the duties of his office. (d)(1) An individual is in the service of an employer whether his service is rendered within or without the United States if (i)(A) he is subject to the continuing authority of the employer to supervise and direct the manner of rendition of his service, or (B) he is rendering professional or technical services and is integrated into the staff of the employer, or (C) he is rendering, on the property used in the employer's operations, personal services the rendition of which is integrated into the employer's operations; and (ii) he renders such service for compensation, or a method of computing the monthly compensation for such service is provided in section 3(j). (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision (1) of this subsection (i) an individual shall be deemed to be in the service of an employer, other than a local lodge or division or a general committee of a railway-labor-organization employer, not conducting the principal part of its business in the United States only when he is rendering service to it in the United States; (ii) an individual shall be deemed to be in the service of a local lodge or division of a railway-labor-organization employer not conducting the principal part of its business in the United States only if (A) all, or substantially all, the individuals constituting the membership of such local lodge or division are employees of an employer conducting the principal part of its business in the United States; or (B) the headquarters of such local lodge or division is located in the United States; and (iii) an individual shall be deemed to be in the service of a general committee of a railway-labor-organization employer not conducting the principal part of its business in the United States only if (A) he is representing a local lodge or division described in clause (A) or (B) of paragraph (ii); or (B) all, or substantially all, the individuals represented by such general committee are employees of an employer conducting the principal part of its business in the United States; or (C) he acts in the capacity of a general chairman or an assistant general chairman of a general committee which represents individuals rendering service in the United States to an employer, but in such case if his office or headquarters is not located in the United States and the individuals represented by such general committee are employees of an employer not conducting the principal part of its business in the United States, only such proportion of the remuneration for such service shall be regarded as compensation as the proportion which the mileage in the United States under the jurisdiction of such general committee bears to the total mileage under its jurisdiction, unless such mileage formula is inapplicable, in which case the Board may prescribe such other formula as it finds to be equitable, and if the application of such mileage formula, or such other formula as the Board may prescribe, would result in the compensation of the individual being less than 10 per centum of his remuneration for such service no part of such remuneration shall be regarded as compensation. (3) Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivisions (1) and (2) of this subsection, an individual not a citizen or resident of the United States shall not be deemed to be in the service of an employer when rendering service outside the United States to an employer who is required under the laws applicable in the place where the service is rendered to employ therein, in whole or in part, citizens or residents thereof. For purposes of this subdivision, the laws applicable on August 29, 1935, in the place where the service is rendered shall be deemed to have been applicable there at all times prior to that date. (e)(1) An individual shall be deemed to have been in the employment relation to an employer on August 29, 1935, if— (i) he was on that date on leave of absence from his employment, expressly granted to him by the employer by whom he was employed, or by a duly authorized representative of such employer, and the grant of such leave of absence will have been established to the satisfaction of the Board before July 1947; (ii) he was in the service of an employer after August 29, 1935, and before January 1946 in each of six calendar months, whether or not consecutive; (iii) before August 29, 1935, he did not retire and was not retired or discharged from the service of the last employer by whom he was employed or its corporate or operating successor, but (A) solely by reason of his physical or mental disability he ceased before August 29, 1935, to be in the service of such employer and thereafter remained continuously disabled until he attained age sixty-five or until August 1945, or (B) solely for such last stated reason an employer by whom he was employed before August 29, 1935, or an employer who is its successor did not on or after August 29, 1935, and before August 1945 call him to return to service, or (C) if he was so called he was solely for such reason unable to render service in six calendar months as provided in paragraph (ii); or (iv) he was on August 29, 1935, absent from the service of an employer by reason of a discharge which, within one year after the effective date thereof, was protested, to an appropriate labor representative or to the employer, as wrongful, and which was followed within ten years of the effective date thereof by his reinstatement in good faith to his former service with all his seniority rights. (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision (1) of this subsection, an individual shall not be deemed to have been in the employment relation to an employer on August 29, 1935, if before that date he was granted a pension or gratuity on the basis of which a pension was awarded to him pursuant to section 6 of the Railroad Retirement Act of 1937, or if during the last payroll period before August 29, 1935, in which he rendered service to an employer he was not in the service of an employer, in accordance with subsection (d), with respect to any service in such payroll period, or if he could have been in the employment relation to an employer only by reason of his having been, either before or after August 29, 1935, in the service of a local lodge or division defined as an employer in subsection (a). (f)(1) The term "years of service" shall mean the number of years an individual as an employee shall have rendered service to one or more employers for compensation or received remuneration for time lost and shall be computed in accordance with the provisions of section 3(i). Twelve calendar months consecutive or otherwise in each of which an employee has rendered such service or received such wages for time lost shall constitute a year of service. Ultimate fractions shall be taken at their actual value. (2) Where service prior to August 29, 1935, may be included in the computation of years of service as provided in subdivision (3) of section 3(i) it may be included as to (i) service rendered to a person which was an employer on August 29, 1935, irrespective of whether such person was an employer at the time such service was rendered. (ii) service rendered to any express company, sleeping-car company or carrier by railroad which was a predecessor of a |