G.R. No. L-17838. August 03, 1966
NASIPIT LABOR UNION (MFL), PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, NASIPIT STEVEDORING CO., INC., AND OLIVIO G. RUIZ, RESPONDENTS.
RUIZ CASTRO, J.:
Relations dated September 8, 1960 granting herein respondent company’s
motion to dismiss the petitioner union’s suit for unfair labor
practice, as well as its resolution of October 27, 1960, denying the
petitioner’s motion for reconsideration.
On March 22, 1960 the Nasipit Labor Union, a labor organization
affiliated with the Mindanao Federation of Labor, filed through the
offices of a prosecutor of the Court of Industrial Relations a
complaint for unfair labor practice against the Nasipit Stevedoring
Co., Inc. (2175-ULP), alleging among other things, that on October 2,
1958 the respondent company and the petitioning union entered into a
collective bargaining agreement, under which the company “shall only
employ union members for doing its stevedoring work under its
management,” and that the union “shall allocate the necessary workers
needed by the corporation for stevedoring work on boats allocated to
said union in accordance with the fifty-fifty (50-50) basis with the
YMLUS” (Young Men Labor Union Stevedores), which agreement was to be
binding on both parties temporarily until an exclusive and collective
bargaining agent of all the workers in the company shall have been
determined by the Court of Industrial Relations by a certification
election to be conducted among the workers in the company; that in the
month of November, 1958 the respondent company, through its president,
the respondent Olivio G. Ruiz, by means of coercion, intimidation,
misrepresentation and promise of monetary consideration, succeeded in
convincing the officers and members of the complainant union to file a
petition with the Department of Labor, for the purpose of
disaffiliating the Nasipit Labor Union from the Mindanao Federation of
Labor, as a consequence of which the Nasipit Labor Union was severed
from the Mindanao Federation of Labor and was thereafter registered as
an independent labor union; that the Mindanao Federation of Labor filed
a protest against the issuance of a new certificate of registration for
the Nasipit Labor Union in view of the fact that the said Federation
was never notified of the disaffiliation proceedings, as a result of
which the new certificate of registration was revoked and the original
certificate of registration of complainant was re-issued; that around
the first week of March 1959 the employees-members of the complainant
union whose names were listed in Annex A to the complaint were deprived
of their stevedoring work “for no other reason except their refusal to
desist membership and/or affiliation with the complainant union”; that
since then the said members have not found any equivalent or
substantial employment for themselves; that upon agreement between the
complainant union and Olivio G. Ruiz, conferences were held on the
subject of the “restoration of the work shared by the members of said
complainant union pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement dated
October 2, 1958”, but that during the last conference on August 9, 1959
the union found out that the company had already entered into a
collective bargaining contract with a closed-shop provision with
another union, the Young Men Labor Union Stevedores (YMLUS); and that
the act of the respondent company in entering into such an agreement
with the YMLUS constitutes bad faith on the part of the said company.
The complainant union, therefore, prayed that the respondents be
declared guilty of unfair labor practice and be ordered to desist from
further committing such unfair labor practice, to pay members of the
complainant union named in Annex A to the complaint their back wages or
earnings from the time they were deprived of their stevedoring work
until they shall have been restored to their former jobs, and to order
the respondents to bargain in good faith with the complainant union.
To the above complaint the respondents presented their answer, and,
later, a motion to dismiss on the grounds that (1) there is another
action pending between the same parties for the same cause in the Court
of First Instance of Agusan, and (2) the Court of Industrial Relations
has no jurisdiction to take cognizance of the case.
In an order dated September 8, 1960 the Court of Industrial
Relations granted the respondents’ motion to dismiss, stating that as
the complaint seeks enforcement of a collective bargaining agreement,
the court lacks jurisdiction to take cognizance of such case in view of
the decision of the Supreme Court in Philippine Sugar Institute vs.
Court of Industrial Relations, et al., G.R. No. L-13098, October 29,
1959. The motion to reconsider the above order was denied on October
27, 1960.
Prior to the proceedings above narrated taken in the CIR, the
Nasipit Labor Union and Cipriano Malonzo (the latter was the President
of the Mindanao Federation of Labor when he signed in behalf of the
said labor organization the collective bargaining agreement on October
2, 1958) filed on March 5, 1959 a complaint in the CFI of Agusan (civil
case 699) against the Nasipit Stevedoring Company (respondent herein)
for the reformation of the aforementioned collective bargaining
agreement to exclude the Mindanao Federation of Labor from the language
of the contract in view of the disaffiliation from the latter
organization of the said Nasipit Labor Union on December 22, 1958.
Three days later, that is, on March 8, the said plaintiff labor union
(this time minus Cipriano Malonzo) amended its complaint, reiterating
its previous prayer, and asking, in addition, that the defendant
company be required to comply with the terms and conditions of the
collective bargaining contract, and to pay corresponding damages. On
March 25, 1959 the CFI of Agusan issued an order dismissing the
complaint on the ground, among others, that the plaintiff had lost
interest in proceeding with the case.
On September 7, 1959 the Nasipit Labor Union and the Mindanao
Federation of Labor (styled NASLU-MFL) filed a new complaint in the
same CFI of Agusan (civil case 748) against the Nasipit Stevedoring
Company and its president Olivio Ruiz, and the Young Men Labor Union
Stevedores (YMLUS) and its president Delfin Cueto, for the enforcement
of the collective bargaining contract, with damages and writ of
preliminary mandatory injunction. This case was pending when the
complaint in case 2175-ULP was filed with the CIR on March 22, 1960.
It will be noted that although there is an allegation in par. 6 of
the complaint filed with the CIR that “on June 25, 1959 the new
certificate of registration [of the Nasipit Labor Union] was revoked
and the original certificate of registration of complainant union was
re-issued”, and although in par. 8 thereof, there is an additional
allegation that as early as August 9, 1959 the president of the NASLU
had already found out that the herein respondent stevedoring company
had “entered into a collective bargaining contract with a close-shop
provision with another union, the Young Men Labor Union Stevedores
(YMLUS)”, the Nasipit Labor Union-Mindanao Federation of Labor
(NASLU-MFL) on September 7, 1959 yet filed civil case 748 in the CFI of
Agusan, solely for the purpose of enforcing the collective bargaining
contract. It was only more than seven months later, that is, on March
22, 1960 , that the NASLU alone, without the MFL impleaded as party
plaintiff, filed its complaint with the CIR for unfair labor practice.
We are persuaded by the concatenation of circumstances and the
sequence of the pleadings that the allegations of unfair labor practice
and of bad faith in bargaining on the part of the respondent company
are not bona-fide, and they must be regarded as nothing more than a
clever maneuver for the purpose of divesting the CFI of Agusan of
jurisdiction to try civil case 748 pending before it and lodging the
case with the CIR, and that the only desire of the complainant union is
the enforcement of the collective bargaining contract and nothing more.
The record shows that when case 2175-ULP was filed with the Court of
Industrial Relations, there was pending before the Court of First
Instance of Agusan civil case 748 brought by the complainant union, the
petitioner herein, against the respondent company entitled “For
Enforcement of Contract with Damages and Writ of Preliminary Mandatory
Injunction.” It will be observed that in these two cases (civil case
748, CFI Agusan and case 2175-ULP, CIR) there is (1) identity of
principal parties, the Nasipit Labor Union and the Nasipit Stevedoring
Company, (2) identity of right asserted and relief prayed for, the
union having brought action in both cases to enforce the provisions of
the collective bargaining agreement entered into between it and the
company, and praying in both instances that the respondent company be
ordered to observe and abide by the provisions of their collective
bargaining contract, to pay wages, compensation and/or salaries of
members and affiliates of complainant union which they failed to earn
but which they should have earned were it not for the respondent
company’s breach of contract.
This appeal is without merit. For, indeed, this Court has already
ruled that the Court of Industrial Relations is without jurisdiction
over suits to enforce collective bargaining agreements (Dee Cho Lumber
Workers Union vs. Dee Cho Lumber Company, G.R. L-10080, April 30, 1957,
55 O.G. No. 3, p. 434; Philippine Sugar Institute vs. CIR, et al.,
supra; Elizalde Paint & Oil Factory, Inc. vs. Hon. Jose S.
Bautista, et al., G.R. L-15904, Nov. 23, 1960; National Mines &
Allied Workers’ Union vs. Philippine Iron Mines, Inc., et al., G.R.
L-19372, October 31, 1964.) In a number of decisions, the broad
jurisdiction given to the Court of Industrial Relations by Commonwealth
Act 103 was held by this Court to have been narrowed down by Republic
Act 875 (approved in 1953) to certain specified cases. In Philippine
Association of Free Labor Unions (PAFLU), et al., vs. Hon. Bienvenido
S. Tan, G.R. L-9115, August 31, 1956, this Court made the following
pronouncement:
“Thus as the law now stands, that power (to settle
labor disputes) is confined to the following cases: (1) when the labor
dispute affects an industry which is indispensable to the national
interest and is so certified by the President to the industrial court
(section 10, Republic Act 875); (2) when the controversy refers to the
minimum wage under the Minimum Wage Law (Republic Act 602); (3) when it
involves hours of employment under the Eight-Hour Labor Law
(Commonwealth Act 444); and (4) when it involves an unfair labor
practice (section 5[a], Republic Act 875). In all other cases, even if
they grow out of a labor dispute, the Court of Industrial Relations
does not have jurisdiction the intendment of the law being ‘to prevent
undue restriction of free enterprise for capital and labor and to
encourage the truly democratic method of regulating the relations
between the employer and employee by means of an agreement freely
entered into in collective bargaining’ (section 7, Republic Act 875).
In other words, the policy of the law is to advance the settlement of
disputes between the employers and the employees through collective
bargaining recognizing ‘that real industrial peace cannot be achieved
by compulsion of law’ (See section 1[c], in relation to section 20,
Idem.)“It therefore appears that with the exception of the
four cases above specified the Court of Industrial Relations has no
jurisdiction even if it involves a labor dispute. And as the issue
involved in the instant case does not fall under, nor refer to, any of
those specified cases, it follows that the lower court has jurisdiction
to entertain the same . [1]
It will thus be seen that an action to enforce provisions, or for
violation, of collective bargaining agreements, is not one of the
instances enumerated in above-quoted decision as falling within the
jurisdiction of the Court of Industrial Relations. In the cases wherein
this Court upheld the industrial court’s jurisdiction over suits
involving collective bargaining contracts, the Court did so because the
action was interwoven with charges of unfair labor practice, [2]
or involved questions regarding minimum wage under the Minimum Wage Law
or hours of employment under the Eight-Hour Labor Law . [3]
In view of all the foregoing, the Court of Industrial Relations
acted rightly and within the bounds of law when it dismissed case
2175-ULP brought before it by the petitioner union.
ACCORDINGLY, the orders of the Court of Industrial Relations appealed from are affirmed. No costs.
Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, JBL, Barrera, Dizon, Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon, JP, Zaldivar, and Sanchez, JJ., concur.
[1] This doctrine was
reiterated in Reyes vs. Tan, 52 O.G. 6187; PAFLU vs. Barot, 52 O.G.
6544; Allied Free Workers Union vs. Apostol. 54 O.G. 981; Mindanao Bus
Employees Labor Union (PLUM) vs. Mindanao Bus Co., L-9795, Dec 28,
1957; Aguilar vs Salumbides, L-10124, Dec. 28, 1957; Dee Cho Lumber
Workers Union (NLU) vs. Dee Cho Lumber Co., supra; Roman Catholic of
Manila vs Yanson, and Elizalde & Co. Inc. vs Yanson, L-12341 &
L-12345, Apr. 30, 1958; Chua Workers Union (NLU) vs. City Automotive
Co., L-11655, Apr. 29 1959.
[2] Pambujan Sur United Mine Workers vs. Samar Mining Co., Inc, 94 Phil. 932.
[3] Benget Consolidated Mining Company vs. Coto Labor Union (NLU, G. R. No. L-12394, May 29, 1959).