G.R. No. L-17057. July 31, 1964
MARSMAN & CO. INC., PETITIONER, VS. CONSOLIDATED LABOR ASSOCIATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, HON. JOSE S. BAUTISTA, HON. ARSENIO I. MARTINEZ, HON. BALTAZAR M. VILLANUEVA, AND HON. EMI…
MAKALINTAL, J.:
hereinafter referred to as the Company, was charged with unfair labor
practice committed against sixty-nine officers and members of the
Marsman & Company Employees and Laborers Association (hereinafter
referred to as MARCELA or simply as the Union). The Court (Judge Jose
S. Bautista), after hearing, found the Company guilty of the charge and
ordered it to reinstate 60 of the aforementioned 69 complainants to
their former positions or to similar ones with the same rate of pay,
without back wages. On motions for reconsideration filed by the Union
and by the Company, respectively, the Court en banc affirmed
the decision—with Judge Arsenio I. Martinez concurring in the result;
Judge Baltazar M. Villanueva concurring in the result in a special
opinion; Judge Emiliano C. Tabigne filing a separate concurring and
dissenting opinion; and Judge Amando C. Bugayong taking no part.
Both the Union and the Company appealed. The former claims that the
60 reinstated employees should be granted backpay (G. R. No. L-17038)
while the latter questions the Industrial Court’s finding of unfair
labor practice (G- R. No. L-17057).
The facts, as found by the Industrial Court, are: The Company had in
its employ approximately 320 persons, about 140 of whom were members of
MARCELA and about 20 of the National Labor Union. On December 23, 1953
the Industrial Court named MARCELA as the employees’ bargaining agent
in regard to rates of pay, terms and conditions of employment. At that
time MARCELA was affiliated with the Federation of Free Workers, or
FFW, a national Labor Organization. On March 17,1954 MARCELA-FFW
submitted to the Company a set of proposals for collective bargaining,
which the Company answered on March 24, 1954. In spite of negotiations
held between the Company and the Union, they failed to reach an
agreement; so on April 8, 1954 the Union tiled a notice of strike with
the Department of Labor. Mediation by the Conciliation Service of that
Department proved fruitless.
On June 4, 1954 the Union declared a strike and at the same time
placed a “round-the-clock” picket line around the Company’s premises in
Intramuros, Manila. The tense situation in the strike zone prompted the
Manila Police Department to send policemen thereto to preserve peace-
Meanwhile the Labor Department’s Conciliation Service continued to
mediate between the representatives of the Union and of the Company.
On July 21, 1954 some 50 employees, of whom nine were members of the
National Labor Union and one a member of MARCELA, entered the Company
premises under police escort in order to return to work.
On July 30, 1954, in a conference called by Eleuterio Adevoso, then
Secretary of Labor, the Union officials and members then present were
prevailed upon by Adevoso to accept the proposal of Antonio de las
Alas, Company vice-president, that they stop the strike and go back to
work, and that when they were already working the company would discuss
with them their demands. Upon being informed of the Union’s acceptance
of the proposal the strikers returned to work. The Company admitted
back sixteen picketing strikers on August 9, 1954 and later on, it also
reemployed non-union employees and a majority of the strikers. However,
complainants herein were refused admittance and were informed by
Company officials that they would not be reinstated unless they ceased
to be active Union members and that in any case the Company already had
enough men for its business operations.
As a result the strike and the picketing were resumed, because of
which employees who had been admitted to work since July 21, 1954 had
to stay inside the Company premises, where the Company furnished them
food and quarters up to October 1954. Nevertheless some of those
employees could go in and out after office hours to visit their
families.
During the strike, some of the pickcters and some non-strikers were
arrested within the strike zone for having committed unlawful acts, and
were duly charged therewith.
A petition for writ of injunction filed by the Company against
MARCELA and its president, Buenaventura Bacay, on the ground that the
strike and picket were being maintained illegally, was denied by the
Court of First Instance of Manila, which pointed out that proper
criminal complaints should have been filed against the individual
strikers in the corresponding courts.
Because of the Company’s consistent refuel to reinstate the 69
complainants even after repeated requests, the Confederation of Labor
Associations of the Philippines (CLAP), to which the Union hnd
affiliated after seceding from the FFW, initiated the present charge
for unfair labor practice.
Initially the strike staged by the Union was meant to compel the
Company to grant it certain economic benefits set forth in its proposal
for collective bargaining. The strike was an economic one,[1]
and the striking employees would have a right to be reinstated if, in
the interim, the employer had not hired other permanent workers to
replace them. For it is recogifized that during the pendency of an
economic strike an employer may take steps to continue and protect his
business by supplying places left vacant by the strikers, and is not
bound to discharge those hired for that purpose upon election of the
strikers to resume their employment.[2]
But the strike changed its character from the time the Company refused
to reinstate complainants because of their union activities after it
had offered to admit all the strikers and in fact did readmit the
others. It was then converted into an unfair labor practice strike.
The Company disputes the Industrial Court’s findings that (1) it
offered to reinstate all the strikers; (2) the complainants made a
timely acceptance of the offer; and (3) the Company’s refusal to
reinstate complainants was for the purpose of discouraging union
activities.
Substantial evidence supports the findings of fact of the Court of
Industrial Relations. Complainants Teodoro Bacalzo, Raymundo
Mostoles-Cruz, Mariano Bautista, and Godofredo Garcia testified thus:
They were all present at the July 30, 1954 conference called by then
Labor Secretary Eleuterio Adevoso in order to settle the differences
between the Company and the Union. It was during this conference that
Antonio de las Alas, then the Company’s vice-president, offered to take
back all the strikers if they would only stop the strike and as further
inducement promised that the Union’s demands would be discussed when
the strikers were already working. Adevoso convinced the Union Officers
and members who were present to accept De las Alas’ proposal.
The lower court’s reasons, we think, amply answer the Company’s
contention that De las Alas could not, by his offer, have bound the
Company because it was Velilla, and not he, who had the authority to
deal with the strikers:
“The denial of respondent that Antonio de las Alas
was not authorized by the Company but Amando L. Velilla to deal with
the union with respect to the strike is not worthy of belief. First
because then De las Alas was an executive Vice-President while Velilla
was only the Secretary of the Company; second, while respondent wants
to impress this Court that Velilla’s authority to deal with the
strikers was by virtue of the Board resolution, such document was not
presented in Court; and third not even De las Alas was presented to
make the denial.”
The Company claims that the complainants applied for readmission
only on June 7, 1955, more than a year after the offer, when the CLAP,
in their behalf, wrote the Company asking for their reinstatement.
Prior to said letter, however, complainants had, by various means,
sought readmission. After De las Alas invitation to return to work was
accepted by the Union officers and members, they informed all the other
strikers accordingly. Thereupon the strikers terminated the strike and
presented themselves for work at the Company’s premises. Eighty one of
the strikers were allowed to come back. But the Company’s security
guards, upon instructions of the Company officials, barred the entrance
when complainants attempted to enter, and informed them that they had
to write individual letters of application. So complainants complied
with this requirement. It appears that the applications were
scrutinized by a committee of employees composed of Salvador Bantique,
assistant accountant of the mines division; Mariano Lee, purchasing
agent; Juan de Vera, paymaster; and Regino Cruz, accountant. Then the
applications were further screened by a personnel committee composed of
Jan H. Marsman, Antonio de las Alas, Charles G. Herdman and Amando
Velilla. None of the sixty-nine applications met with favorable action
by either committee.
In addition to writing formal letters of application a member of the
complainants phoned while others personally approached their respective
chiefs of department in the Company. Some also went to see Salvador
Bantique, chairman of the screening committee, and expressed their
desire to work. Bantique, however, upon learning that the strikers,
among them Eulogio Labrador, were still active union members, informed
them that they should first disaffiliate from the union in order to be
reinstated. Furthermore, Amando Velilla, when approached by a group of
complainants, told the latter that they had been away for a long time;
that the Company had enough employees and did not need additional help;
that some of those whom he had invited to return refused; and that by
that time (August, 1954) it was already too late for them to wish to
return.
The Company alleges that it was economic reasons, i. e., its policy
of retrenchment, not labor discrimination, which prevented it from
rehiring complainants. This is disproved, however, by the fact that it
not only readmitted the other strikers, but also hired new employees
and even increased the salaries of its personnel by almost 50%. We are
convinced that it was not business exigency but a desire to discourage
union activities which prompted the Company to deny readmittance to
complainants. This is an indubitable case of unfair labor practice.
The strike was illegal of purpose, the Company insists, first,
because it was staged for a trifling reason: and second, the union
‘demands, which had precipitated the strike, were already covered by an
Industrial Court judgment, for the alteration, modification or setting
aside of which a certain procedure has to be followed.
The Union began the strike because it believed in good faith that
settlement of their demands was at an impasse and that further
negotiations would only come to naught. It stopped the strike upon the
belief they could go back to work. Then it renewed the strike (or it
started a new strike) as a protest against the discrimination practiced
by the Company. Both are valid grounds for going on a strike.
It is true that on August 14, 1952 the Industrial Court promulgated
a decision in CIR Case No. 571-V, Marsman and Company Employees and
Laborer Association (MARCELA-FFW) vs. Marsman and Company, Inc.
However, except for demand for general salary increases, the demands in
said labor case were different from the demands which the Union made
before it went on strike. For this reason, it did not have to ask for
modification of the aforementioned judgment. It had only to give the
proper strike notice, as in fact it did.
The Company further argues that since the methods used by the
strikers were illegal, it had the right to refuse them readmission. Of
the 69 complainants, nine, namely Alejandro Mojar, Manuel Mazo, Esteban
Borja, Cecilio Walo, Eugenio Valenzuela, Elias Matic, Marcos Buccat,
Malisimo Vargas and Ricardo Antonio were charged with and convicted of
various crime like coercion, malicious mischief, physical injuries,
breach of the peace, light threats, and damage to property, all
Committed during the period from September 4, 1954 to October 12, 1954.
Admittedly, the Company could not have condoned those acts which were
committed after it had offered to reinstate the strikers. Nevertheless,
as the lower court reasoned out it docs not appear that the
aforementioned individual acts were authorized or even impliedly
sanctioned by the Union. Hence, the other strikers who were innocent of
and did not participate in the illegal acts should not foe punished by
being deprived of their right of reinstatement. It is only those who
had been found guilty who should be penalized by the loss of the right.[3]
We now come to the question of backpay. In an economic strike, the
strikers are not entitled to backpay, since the employer should get the
equivalent day’s work for what he pays his employees- During the time
that the strike was an economic one, complainants had no right to back
pay. The Industrial Court could not have made a finding of unfair labor
practice with respect to such time, as none had so far been committed.
This being an unfair labor practice case, it cannot, therefore, order
reinstatement much less back pay for that period.[4]
On the other hand, even after the court has made a finding of unfair
labor practice, it still has the discretion to determine whether or not
to grant back pay. Such discretion was not abused when it denied back
wages to complainants, considering the climate of violence which
attended the strike and picket that the complainants conducted. While
the complainants ordered reinstated did not actively take part in the
acts of violence, their minatory attitude towards the Company may be
gathered from the fact that from the very first day of the strike
policemen had to patrol the strike zone in order to preserve peace.
Wherefore, the judgment appealed from is affirmed, without costs.
Bengzon, C. J., Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L., Paredes and Regala, JJ., concur.
[1] An economic strike is
defined as one which is to forge wage or other concessions form the
employer which he is not required by law to grant.
[2] Teller, Labor Disputes and Collective Bargaining, Vol. II 754-755.
[3] PECO vs. C.I.R. L-7156, May 31, 1955.
[4] Malaya Workers Union (PAFLU) vs. C.I.R. L-17880-81, April 23, 1963.