Topic: Workers
with right to self organization; supervisors
FACTS:
1.
Respondent association is a labor
organization duly registered with the Department of Labor. It is composed
exclusively of the supervisory and confidential employees of petitioner
corporation. There exists another entirely distinct labor association
composed of the corporation's rank-and-file employees, the Filoil Employees
& Workers Association (FEWA) with which petitioner executed a collective
bargaining agreement. This collective bargaining agreement expressly excluded
from its coverage petitioner's supervisory and confidential employees, who in
turn organized their own labor association, respondent herein.
2.
Respondent association filed on February 18,
1965 with the industrial court its petition for certification as the sole and
exclusive collective bargaining agent of all of petitioner's supervisory and
confidential employees working at its refinery in Rosario, Cavite.
3.
Petitioner corporation filed a motion to
dismiss the petition on the grounds of lack of cause of action and of
respondent court's lack of jurisdiction over the subject-matter, under its
claim that supervisors are not employees within the meaning of Republic Act
875, the Industrial Peace Act, and that since they are part of management, they
do not have the right to bargain collectively although they may organize an
organization of their own.
4. CIR: denied the dismissal motion. It ruled
that under the express provisions of section 3 of the Industrial Peace Act,
"(I)ndividuals employed as supervisors shall not be eligible for
membership in a labor organization of employees under their supervision
but may form separate organizations their own."
5. Hence, this petition.
ISSUE/S: WON the supervisors (and confidential employees) has
right to self organization?
RULING: YES, they
(both) do.
Petitioner's arguments go in reality to the wisdom and policy of the
Industrial Peace Act which expressly grants supervisors the right to organize
and bargain collectively, which are beyond the Court's power of review. Thus,
the argument that "it is axiomatic in the law of self-interest that an
employer must give a "better deal" to those who act in his interest
and in whom he has trust and confidence. These are the supervisors and
confidential employees" and that "In
the United States there was a move to have a part of the supervisory group to
be aligned with labor. But the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act put an end to
this move."
1.
So with petitioner's thesis that "(T)o then
give supervisors the right to compel employers to bargain would in effect align
labor and management together against stockholders and bondholders (capital)
and inexorably tilt the balance of power in favor of these hitherto confliction
forces. This is contrary to the nature and philosophy of free enterprise." This
further serves to point up the validity and rationale of the Industrial Peace
Act's provision, since the supervisors and confidential employees, even though
they may exercise the prerogatives of management as regards the rank and file
employees are indeed employees in relation to their employer, the company which
is owned by the "stockholders and bondholders (capital)" in
petitioner's own words, and should therefore be entitled under the law to
bargain collectively with the top management with respect to their terms and
conditions of employment.
2.
Petitioner's argument that the express provisions
of section 3 of our Industrial Peace Act must give way to the intendment of the
Taft-Hartley Act which exempts employers from the legal obligation to recognize
and negotiate with supervisors is tenuous and groundless. The language of our
own statute is plain and unambiguous and admits of no other interpretation.
3.
The other principal ground of petitioner's appeal questioning the
confidential employees' inclusion in the supevisors bargaining unit is equally
untenable. Respondent court correctly held that since the confidential employee
are very few in number and are by practice and tradition identified with the
supervisors in their role as representives of management vis-a-vis the rank and
file employee such identity of interest has allowed their inclusion in the
bargaining unit of supervisors-managers for purposes of collective bargaining
in turn as employees in relation to the company as their employer.
4.
No arbitrariness or grave abuse of discretion can be attributed against
respondent court's allowing the inclusion of the confidential employees in the
supervisors' association for as admitted by petitioner itself, supra,
the supervisors and confidential emplyees enjoy its trust and confidence. Thisidentity
of interest logically calls for their inclusion in the same bargaining unit and
at the same time fulfills the law's objective of insuring to them the full
benefit of their right to self-organization and to collective bargaining, which
could hardly be accomplished if the respondent association's membership were to
be broken up into five separate ineffective tiny units, as urged by petitioner.
DISPOSITIVE: Filoil supervisors and confidential employees won.
DOCTRINE: Section 3 of the Industrial
Peace Act "explicitly provides that "employees" — and this term
includes supervisors — "shall have the right to self-organization, and to
form, join or assist labor organizations of their own choosing for the purpose
of collective bargaining through representations of their own choosing and to
engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining and
other mutual aid or protection" and that "individuals employed as
supervisors ... may form separate organizations of their own". Indeed, it
is well settled that "in relation to his employer," a foreman or
supervisor "is an employee within the meaning of the Act" ... For
this reason, supervisors are entitled to
engage in union activities and any discrimination against them by reason
thereof constitutes an unfair labor practice."
No comments:
Post a Comment