GOLDEN FARMS, INC., PETITIONER, VS. THE HONORABLE SECRETARY OF LABOR AND THE PROGRESSIVE FEDERATION OF LABOR, RESPONDENTS.

The sole issue for resolution in this Petition for Certiorari
with prayer for the issuance of preliminary injunction and/or restraining order
is whether or not petitioner’s monthly paid rank-and-file employees can
constitute a bargaining unit separate from the existing bargaining unit of its daily
paid rank-and-file employees.

Petitioner Golden Farms, Inc., is a corporation engaged in
the production and marketing of bananas for export. On February 27, 1992, private respondent
Progressive Federation of Labor (PFL) filed a petition before the Med-Arbiter
praying for the holding of a certification election among the monthly paid
office and technical rank-and-file
employees of petitioner Golden Farms.

Petitioner moved to dismiss the petition on three (3)
grounds. First, respondent PFL failed
to show that it was organized as a chapter within petitioner’s
establishment. Second, there was
already an existing collective bargaining agreement between the rank-and-file
employees represented by the National Federation of Labor (NFL) and
petitioner. And third, the employees
represented by PFL had allegedly been disqualified
by this Court from bargaining with management in Golden Farms, Inc.,
vs. Honorable Director Pura Ferrer-Calleja, G.R. No. 78755, July 19, 1989.^[1]

Respondent PFL opposed petitioner’s Motion to Dismiss. It countered that the monthly paid office
and technical employees should be allowed to form a separate bargaining unit
because they were expressly excluded from
coverage in the Collecting Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between petitioner
and NFL. It also contended that the
case invoked by petitioner was inapplicable to the present case.

In its reply, petitioner argued that the monthly paid office and
technical employees should have joined the existing collective bargaining unit
of the rank-and-file employees if they
are not managerial employees.

On April 18, 1991, the Med-Arbiter granted the petition and
ordered that a certification election be conducted, viz:

“WHEREFORE, premises
considered, the present petition filed by the Progressive Federation of Labor,
for certification election among the office and technical employees of Golden
Farms, Inc., is, as it is hereby, GRANTED with the following choices:

1.     
Progressive Federation of Labor (PFL);

2.     
No union.

The designated representation officer is hereby directed to call
the parties to a pre-election conference to thresh out the mechanics of the
election and to conduct and supervise the same within twenty (20) days from
receipt by the parties of this Order. The “Masterlist of Office and Technical Employees” shall be
the basis in determining the employees qualified to vote during the
certification election.

SO ORDERED.“^[2]

Petitioner seasonably appealed to public respondent Secretary of
Labor. On August 6, 1991, respondent
Secretary of Labor issued the assailed Decision denying the appeal for lack of
merit.^[3]
Petitioner filed a Motion for
Reconsideration but the same was also denied on September 13, 1991.

Thus, this petition for certiorari
interposing two (2) issues.

I

THE CREATION OF AN ADDITIONAL BARGAINING
UNIT FOR CERTAIN RANK AND FILE EMPLOYEES WILL NOT ONLY SPLIT THE EXISTING ONE
BUT WILL ALSO NEGATE THE PRINCIPLE OF RES
JUDICATA.

II

THE PROGRESSIVE FEDERATION OF LABOR BEING
THE EXCLUSIVE BARGAINING AGENT OF THE SUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES IS DISQUALIFIED
FROM REPRESENTING THE OFFICE AND TECHNICAL EMPLOYEES.

The petition is devoid of merit.

The monthly paid office and technical rank-and-file employees of
petitioner Golden Farms enjoy the constitutional right to self-organization and
collective bargaining.^[4] A
“bargaining unit” has been defined as a group of employees of a given
employer, comprised of all or less than all of the entire body of employees,
which the collective interest of all the employees, consistent with equity to
the employer, indicate to be the best suited to serve the reciprocal rights and
duties of the parties under the collective bargaining provisions of the law.^[5]
The community or mutuality of interest is therefore the essential criterion in
the grouping. “And this is so
because’ the basic test of an asserted bargaining unit’s acceptability is
whether or not it is fundamentally the combination which will best assure to
all employees the exercise of their collective bargaining rights.’”^[6]

In the case at bench, the evidence established that the monthly
paid rank-and-file employees of petitioner primarily perform administrative or
clerical work. In contradistinction,
the petitioner’s daily paid rank-and-file employees mainly work in the
cultivation of bananas in the fields. It is crystal clear the monthly paid rank-and-file employees of
petitioner have very little in common with its daily paid rank-and-file
employees in terms of duties and obligations, working conditions, salary rates,
and skills. To be sure, the said monthly
paid rank-and?file employees have even been excluded from the bargaining
unit of the daily paid rank-and-file employees. This dissimilarity of interests warrants the formation of a
separate and distinct bargaining unit for the monthly paid rank-and-file
employees of the petitioner. To rule
otherwise would deny this distinct class of employees the right to
self-organization for purposes of collective bargaining. Without the shield of an organization, it
will also expose them to the
exploitations of management. So we held
in University of the Philippines vs. Ferrer-Calleja,^[7]
where we sanctioned the formation of
two (2) separate bargaining units within the establishment, viz:

“[T]he dichotomy of interests, the dissimilarity in the nature
of the work and duties as well as in the compensation and working conditions of the academic and non­-academic
personnel dictate the separation of these two categories of employees for
purposes of collective bargaining. The
formation of two separate bargaining units, the first consisting of the
rank-and-file non-academic employees, and the second, of the rank-and-file
academic employees, is the set-up that will best assure to all the employees
the exercise of their collective bargaining rights.”

Petitioner next contends that these monthly paid office and
technical employees are managerial employees. They allegedly include those in the accounting and personnel department,
cashier, and other employees holding
positions with access to classified information.

We are not persuaded. Article 212, paragraph (m) of the Labor Code, as amended, defines a
managerial employee as follows:

“‘Managerial employee’ is one who is vested with power or
prerogatives to lay down and execute management policies and/or to hire, transfer,
suspend, lay-off, recall, discharge, assign or discipline employees. Supervisory employees are those who, in the
interest of the employer, effectively recommend such managerial actions if the
exercise of such authority is not merely routinary or clerical in nature but
requires the use of independent
judgment. All employees not falling
within any of the above definitions are considered rank-and-file employees for
purposes of this Book.”

Given this definition, the monthly paid
office and technical employees, accountants, and cashiers of the petitioner are
not managerial employees for they do not participate in policy-making but are
given cut out policies to execute and standard practices to observe.^[8]
In the main, the discharge of their duties does not involve the use of
independent judgment. As factually
found by the Med-Arbiter, to wit:

“A perusal of the list of the office and technical employees
sought to be represented in the
instant case, with their corresponding designation does not show that said
Office and Technical employees exercises supervisory or managerial functions.

The office believes and so hold that the employees whose names
appear in the “Masterlist of Office and Technical Employees”
submitted during the hearing are eligible to join/form a labor organization of
their own choice.”^[9]

Our decision in Golden Farms, Inc., vs. Honorable Pura
Ferrer-Calleja, op. cit., does not pose
any obstacle in holding a certification election among petitioner’s
monthly paid rank-and-file employees. The issue brought to fore in that case was totally different, i.e.,
whether or not petitioner’s confidential employees, considering the nature of
their work, should be included in the bargaining unit of the daily paid
rank-and-file employees. In the case at
bench, the monthly paid rank-and-file employees of petitioner are being separated as a bargaining unit
from its daily paid rank-and-file employees, on the ground that they have
different interest to protect. The principle of res judicata is, therefore, inapplicable.

The second assigned error which was not raised in the proceedings
below must necessarily fail. The
alleged error involves a question of fact which this Court cannot resolve. Petitioner submitted this contention only in
its Memorandum dated February 12, 1993.^[10] In
this Memorandum, petitioner cited LRD Case No. OXI-UR-70 for Direct
Recognition/Certification Election. But
even a side glance of the cited case will reveal that it involves a petition
for direct certification among the rank-and-file office and technical employees
of the Golden Farms Inc., (not supervisory employees) under the House of
Investment, Ladislawa Village, Buhangin, Davao City filed by the National
Federation of Labor (not the respondent Progressive Federation of Labor). The averment of petitioner is baseless and
its recklessness borders the contemptuous.

Finally, we note that it was petitioner company that filed the
motion to dismiss the petition for election. The general rule is that an employer has no standing to question a certification
election since this is the sole
concern of the workers.^[11] Law
and policy demand that employers take a
strict, hands-off stance in certification elections. The bargaining representative of employees should be chosen free
from any extraneous influence of management. A labor bargaining representative, to be effective, must owe its loyalty
to the employees alone and to no other.

WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED for lack of
merit. With costs against petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Padilla, Regalado, and Mendoza, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Petition, Rollo, pp. 6-7.

^[2]
Med-Arbiter’s Order, Rollo, pp. 31-32.

^[3]
Id., p. 43.

^[4]
1987 Constitution, Article XIII, Section 3.

^[5]
University of the Philippines vs. Ferrer-Calleja, G.R. No. 96189, July
14, 1992, 211 SCRA 451; citing Rothenberg on Labor Relations, 482, cited in
Fernandez & Quiazon, The Law of Labor Relations, 1963 ed., p. 281.

^[6]
Supra., p. 467.

^[7]
Supra., pp. 468-469.

^[8]
Villuga vs. NLRC, G.R. No. 75038, August 23, 1993, 225 SCRA 537.

^[9]
Rollo, pp. 30-31.

^[10]
Rollo, p. 121.

^[11]
Philippine Telegraphic and Telephone Corp., vs. Laguesma, G.R. No.
101730, June 17, 1993, 223 SCRA 452.