TALLER BISAYAS EMPLOYEES AND WORKERS ASSOCIATION (TALBEWA), PETITIONER, VS. PANAY ALLIED WORKERS UNION AND STRACHAN & MCMURRAY LTD., (TALLER BISAYAS) AND THE COURT OF INDUSTRIAL…

The
Panay Allied Workers Union (PAWU) is a duly registered labor organization, with
membership composed of employees of the Strachan
& McMurray, Ltd. (Taller Bisayas) at de la Rama Street, Iloilo City.  On 17
December 1963 it filed with the Iloilo office of the Court of Industrial Relations
a petition for direct certification as the exclusive bargaining representative
of the employees alleging that there was no other labor organization in existence to bargain for them with the
employer, hereinafter referred
to as the Company.  In its answer to the petition the Company
opposed the petition for direct certification
but proposed instead that a certification election be conducted, with notice to
all interested parties.

On 28 January 1964 a hearing was held,
at which PAWU and the Company agreed on a certification election and
stipulated on certain matters,
particularly on the question of who should be allowed to vote and who should be
disqualified from voting.  The same morning, after the stipulations
had been entered into, the Taller Bisayas Employees
and Workers Association (TALBEWA), represented by its president and its
counsel, arrived on the scene and verbally moved that it be allowed to inter­vene.  The hearing examiner of the court denied the
motion, also verbally, on the ground that TALBEWA had not yet been granted a
permit by the Department of Labor at that time and therefore was not qualified
to participate in a proceeding to select the appropriate bargaining repre­sentative
of the workers and/or employees.

On 24 February 1964 the
Court of Industrial Relations, through
Presiding Judge Jose S. Bautista, issued an order affirming in
effect the denial of TALBEWA’s motion
for intervention by the hearing
Examiner and requesting the Department of Labor to conduct a certification
election in the office of Strachan & McMurray at
de la Rama Street, Iloilo City.

On 2 March 1964, a formal motion for intervention dated 27 February was filed by TALBEWA,
this time alleging that it was a duly registered labor organization
(certificate of registration is dated 3 February 1964) and reiterating its desire to participate in the
certification election.  On 17
April 1964 the court, through the same Presiding Judge, denied the motion, as
follows:

“Considering that the instant motion was filed only on March
2, 1964, or more than one month after movant’s verbal motion was denied by the Hearing
Examiner, it is believed that the same
is too late to be given due course, especially so when the Court has already
issued an Order directing the holding of a certification election in the re­spondent
Company.  In fact, a certi­fication
election was conducted by the
Department of Labor on March 30,
1964.”

A subsequent motion for
reconsideration was likewise denied by the Court en banc on the
ground that it did not find
“sufficient justification for altering or modifying the aforesaid
order.” The different orders of denial are the subject of the instant
appeal by certiorari which TALBEWA has seasonably interposed.

It appears that in the
certification election conducted by the Department of Labor on 30 March 1964 a total of seventy-eight ballots were cast. 
Four of them were segregated upon order of the court,
their validity to be resolved later should they be determinative of the result.  Of the seventy-four (74) votes considered,
forty-eight (48) were for PAWU, twenty-two were for NO UNION, and four (4) were
held spoiled and hence were not counted. 
PAWU thus obtained more than the absolute majority.

We are not convinced that
the Court of Industrial Relations committed a reversible error or grossly
abused its discretion in the premises. 
In the first place, petitioner’s first and verbal motion to intervene
was filed when it was not yet a duly registered labor organ­ization.  The denial thereof by the hearing examiner
was therefore in order.  Secondly,
petitioner filed its formal motion for the same purpose after the lapse of more
than one month following the denial, and by then the court had already affirmed
the same and requested the Department of Labor to conduct the certification
election agreed upon between PAWU and the Company.  Finally, there is no clear showing that
petitioner’s intervention would have altered the result of that election.  A mere allegation that petitioner counted
with a majority of the employees and/or workers is not
enough ground to set the election aside.

In the absence of an express allegation that a new hearing will change the facts
found, the new trial or cross-examination demanded would be idle ceremony; it
would not serve the ends of justice at all, especially so in a
quasi-administrative body like the Court of Industrial Relations, where the
rules of confrontation and cross-examination have not been expressly granted,
as in a trial against an accused in a criminal case.  (National City Bank of New York vs.
NCBNY Employees Union, G. R. No. L-­9168)

The orders appealed from
are affirmed, with costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, Dizon, Zaldivar, Sanchez, Castro,
Angeles, and Fernando, JJ., concur.

Bengzon, J., took no part.