Topic:
Cancellation of Union Certificate of Registration
FACTS:
Petitioner S.S. Ventures International, Inc. (Ventures), a PEZA-
registered export firm with principal place of business at Phase I-PEZA- Bataan
Export Zone, Mariveles, Bataan, is in the business of manufacturing sports
shoes. Respondent S.S. Ventures Labor Union (Union) is a labor organization
registered with the DOLE.
March 21, 2000, the Union filed with DOLE-Region III a petition
for certification election in behalf of the rank-and-file employees
August 21, 2000, Ventures filed a Petition to cancel the Union’s
certificate of registration alleging that the Union deliberately and
maliciously included the names of more or less 82 former employees no longer
connected with Ventures in its list of members who attended the organizational
meeting and in the adoption/ratification of its constitution and by-laws; that
No organizational meeting and ratification actually took place; and the Union’s application for registration was not supported by at least 20% of the
rank-and-file employees of Ventures.
Regional Director of DOLE- Region III favored Ventures and
resolved to Cancel the Certificate of the union.
On appeal, the BLR Director granted the Union’s appeal and
reversing the decision of RD.
Ventures went to the CA. The CA dismissed Ventures’ petition as
well as the MR.
Hence, this petition for review
ISSUE: Whether the registration of the Union must be cancelled?
RULING: NO. The right to form,
join, or assist a union is specifically protected by Art. XIII, Section 3 of
the Constitution and such right, according to Art. III, Sec. 8 of the
Constitution and Art. 246 of the Labor Code, shall not be abridged.
Once registered with the DOLE, a union is
considered a legitimate labor organization endowed with the right and
privileges granted by law to such organization. While a certificate of
registration confers a union with legitimacy with the concomitant right to
participate in or ask for certification election in a bargaining unit, the registration
may be canceled or the union may be decertified as the bargaining unit, in
which case the union is divested of the status of a legitimate labor
organization.
Among the grounds for
cancellation is the commission of any of the acts enumerated in Art. 239(a) of
the Labor Code, such as fraud and misrepresentation in connection with the
adoption or ratification of the union’s constitution and like documents.
The Court, has in previous cases,
said that to decertify a union, it is not enough to show that the union
includes ineligible employees in its membership. It must also be shown that
there was misrepresentation, false statement, or fraud in connection with the application
for registration and the supporting documents, such as the adoption or
ratification of the constitution and by-laws or amendments thereto and the
minutes of ratification of the constitution or by-laws, among other documents.
The evidence presented by
Ventures consist mostly of separate hand-written statements of 82 employees who
alleged that they were unwilling or harassed signatories to the attendance
sheet of the organizational meeting. However these evidence was presented seven
months after the union filed its petition for cancellation of registration.
Hence these statements partake of the nature of withdrawal of union membership
executed after the Union’s filing of a petition for certification election on
March 21, 2000.
We have said that the employees’
withdrawal from a labor union made before the filing of the petition for
certification election is presumed voluntary, while withdrawal after the filing
of such petition is considered to be involuntary and does not affect the same.
Now then, if a withdrawal from
union membership done after a petition for certification election has been
filed does not vitiate such petition, it is but logical to assume that such
withdrawal cannot work to nullify the registration of the union. The Court is
inclined to agree with the CA that the BLR did not abuse its discretion nor
gravely err when it concluded that the affidavits of retraction of the 82
members had no evidentiary weight.
The registration or the
recognition of a labor union after it has submitted the corresponding papers is
not ministerial on the part of the BLR. It becomes mandatory for the BLR to
check if the requirements under Art. 234 of the Labor Code have been sedulously
complied with. If the union’s application is infected by falsification and like
serious irregularities, especially those appearing on the face of the
application and its attachments, a union should be denied recognition as a
legitimate labor organization. The issuance to the Union of Certificate of
Registration, in the case at bar, necessarily implies that its application for
registration and the supporting documents thereof are prima facie free from any
vitiating irregularities.
The relevance of the 82
individuals’ active participation in the Union’s organizational meeting and the
signing ceremonies thereafter comes in only for purposes of determining whether
or not the Union, even without the 82, would still meet what Art. 234(c) of the
Labor Code requires to be submitted, requiring that the union applicant must
file the names of all its members comprising at least twenty percent (20%) of
all the employees in the bargaining unit where it seeks to operate.
In its union records on file with
this Bureau, respondent union submitted the names of 542 members. This number
easily complied with the 20% requirement, be it 1,928 or 2,202 employees in the
establishment.
Even subtracting the 82 employees
from 542 leaves 460 union members, still within 440 or 20% of the maximum total
of 2,202 rank-and-file employees of the employer Venture.
Whatever misgivings the
petitioner may have with regard to the 82 dismissed employees is better
addressed in the inclusion-exclusion proceedings during a pre-election
conference. The issue surrounding the involvement of the 82 employees is a
matter of membership or voter eligibility. It is not a ground to cancel union
registration.
For fraud and misrepresentation
to be grounds for cancellation of union registration under Article 239, the
nature of the fraud and misrepresentation must be grave and compelling enough
to vitiate the consent of a majority of union members.
DISPOSITIVE: Labor Union won. Petition Denied.
DOCTRINE: To decertify a union, it is not enough to
show that the union includes ineligible employees in its membership. It
must also be shown that there was misrepresentation, false statement, or fraud
in connection with the application for registration and the supporting
documents, such as the adoption or ratification of the constitution and by-laws
or amendments thereto and the minutes of ratification of the constitution or
by-laws, among other documents.
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