UNITED STATES LINES COMPANY, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

On or about February 21, 1956, the Associated Watchmen & Security Union
(PTWO)-hereafter referred to as the Union-filed with the Court of Industrial
Relations a petition, which was docketed as Case No. 328-MC, alleging that the
United States Lines Company-hereafter referred to as the Company-“is a
corporation engaged in the business of shipping and has in their employ in the
Philippines, members of said Union,” that the same “claims that the watchmen
employed by said employer to watch aboard their ships while docked or staying in
Philippine waters is an appropriate and separate bargaining unit”; that there is
no other labor organization in said unit; that the number of employees therein
is about thirty (30); and that the aforementioned “Union consists of the
majority of the employees in the said bargaining unit,” and praying that said
Union be certified “as the appropriate collective bargaining agent of the unit
at the establishment above-stated.”

Subsequently, the Maligaya Ship Watchmen Agency-hereafter referred to as the
Agency-was allowed to intervene in the case, which was heard jointly with cases
Nos. 329-MC and 332-MC of the same court, instituted’ by the Union against the
American President Lines and Macondray & Co., respectively, as well as Case
No. 10-IPA, entitled “U.S. Lines Co., et al. vs. Associated Watchmen
and Security Union, et al.” In the course of the trial, the Union amended its
petition in the sense that “it covers only the Port of Manila,” so as to “only
ask a certification for the City of Manila.” After appropriate proceedings, the
Court of Industrial Relations, thereafter, rendered a decision, dated December
20, 1956, giving due course to the “petitions for certification election.” The
dispositive part of said decision reads:

“In view of the foregoing, the Department of Labor is hereby ordered to
conduct a certification election, pursuant to Section 12 of Republic Act No. 875
and the Rules approved by this Court on September 4, 1953, in the premises that
may be designated by the said Department to suit the convenience of the
employees affected in Cases Nos. 328-MC, 329-MC and 332-MC, and also to observe
the following in the conduct of such election:

1. To use payrolls of the several ships showing the watchmen or security
guards who rendered services from January 18, 1956. The Intervenors Watchmen
Agencies are hereby enjoined to furnish the Department of Labor or its
representative the payrolls concerned;

2. To allow to vote watchmen or security guards who are present during the
said period, including those who did not work during the said period because of
illness or they were on vacation or were temporarily laid-off, but excluding
those who have since quit or been discharged for cause and have not been
re-hired or reinstated prior to the date of the election, and also eateluding
those who are on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement—to determine
whether they desire to be represented for purposes of collective bargaining, by
the Associated Watchmen and Security Union (PTWO) and the Maligaya Ship Watchmen
Agency in Case No. 328-MC; the Associated Watchmen and Security Union (PTWO) and
the Marine Security Agency in Case No. 329-MC; and the Associated Watchmen and
Security Union (PTWO) and the City Watchmen Security Agency in Case No. 332-MC,
or by neither;

3. Whether charges of the discriminatory discharge of certain watchmen or
security guards were pending at the time of an election, such employees should
be allowed to vote, but their ballots should be impounded and not counted unless
the result of the election made it necessary, and that in that event the result
of the election await the outcome of the proceeding on the charges;

4. In the Minutes of the Certification Election should appear the reason of
the challenger and the ruling of the representative of the Department of Labor
on the matter;

and to transmit to this Court the results of said election within the
reglementary period provided by law.”

This decision was, on petition for review by certiorari, affirmed by this
Court in G. R. Nos. L-12208-11 on May 11, 1958. Subsequently, or on January 2,
1959, the Department of Labor conducted the aforementioned certification
election among the ship watchmen, and the Agency obtained the requisite majority
vote, whereupon the Court of Industrial Relations, issued, in Case No. 328-MC,
an order, dated January 23, 1959, certifying said Agency “as the sole and
exclusive representative of all employees and laborers of the United States
Lines, for the purpose of collecting bargaining agreement with respect to rates
of pay, wages, hours of employment and other conditions of employment.”

Alleging that this order is contrary to the evidence, the pleadings and the
records of the case, as well as to law, in that it expanded the collective
bargaining unit referred to in the petition—which, as amended, was limited to
the watchmen employed to watch aboard the vessels of the Company while
docked or staying in the Port of Manila— to include therein not only
the watchmen working in Manila, but, also, all other employees
and laborers of the United States Lines in Manila and in other parts of the
Philippines, the Company moved for a reconsideration of said order and
prayed that “the words ‘of all employees and laborers of the United States
Lines* appearing in the dispositive portion of said Order be changed to: ‘of all
watchmen rendering service on the vessels of the United States Lines in the Port
of Manila’ in order to conform with the pleadings, the evidence, the law and the
decision of the Supreme Court in this case.” Although neither the Agency nor the
Union (PTWO) opposed the motion for reconsideration, the Court of Industrial
Relations, sitting en banc, denied it in a brief resolution, dated February 19,
1959, stating that it “fails to find sufficient justification for altering or
modifying the aforesaid Order.” Hence, the Company seeks a review by certiorari
of the aforementioned order of January 23, 1959 and resolution of February 19,
1959, and prays that both be set aside and that, in lieu thereof, “the Maligaya
Ship Watchmen Agency be certified as the sole and exclusive representative of
all watchmen rendering service on the vessels of the United States Lines in the
Port of Manila,” for the reason adverted to above.

In its answer to said petition for review, the Union (PTWO) alleged that
“there is no need to alter the decision of the lower court because the said
decision certifying the other respondent Union as bargaining agent for all
laborers and employees, refers to the watchmen in the certified unit and to
no other employees * * *.”

Respondent Court, in turn “emphatically” denied, in its answer, that the
order and the resolution complained of “expanded the collective bargaining Unit
to include in said Unit all Office staff and Office employees of said company in
Manila and * * * in its other branches,” and alleged “that the claimed Unit
expansion exists only in the mind of petitioner herein,” that “from the
pleadings in the cases a quo, the intention of the parties is clear, as a matter
of fact in one of the hearings in the Court a quo, counsel for respondent Union
(PTWO) manifested therein that the petition for certification is for the
City of Manila and for watchmen Unit alone;” and that “the
pleadings ancl intention of the parties being clear, the First Sala of
respondent Court could not have intended to expand the bargaining Unit”
in question.

It is conceded, therefore, that the pleadings, the evidence, and the
decisions rendered in this case authorized a certification election for the
bargaining Unit consisting only of the watchmen who rendered service on
the vessels of the Company in the Port of Manila. The issue is thus
circumscribed to whether the order of the lower court of January 23, 1959,
certifying the Agency as the exclusive representative of all employees and
laborers of the United States Lines for the purpose of collective bargaining,
applies to employees and laborers of said enterprise who are neither watchmen
nor working in the Port of Manila.

Petitioner maintains the affirmative, whereas the lower court and the Union
sustain the negative view. What is more, the lower court asserts that it had
no intention to expand the bargaining Unit in question beyond the
extent contemplated in the pleadings, evidence and decisions already mentioned.
Upon the other hand, despite due notice given thereto, the Agency has not cared
to answer the present petition for review, thereby indicating that it has no
objection thereto.

There being no dispute about the fact that the right of the Agency, under the
decision of the lower court of December 20, 1956, as affirmed by this Court and
implemented by the certification election held on January 2, 1959, is limited to
being the sole representative, for collective bargaining purposes, of the
watchmen working on the vessels of the Company docked or staying in the
Port of Manila, and the lower court having expressed its lack of intent
to go beyond the purview of said decisions, the issue concerning the meaning and
implications of the order complained of has become moot, for which reason said
order, construed in the limited sense just indicated, is hereby affirmed,
without special pronouncement as to costs.

It is so ordered.

Paras, C.J., Bengzon, Padilla, Bautista Angela, Labrador, Reyes, J.B.L.,
Barrera, Gutierrez David, and Paredes, JJ., concur.

Order affirmed.