CASE DIGEST: DUNLOP SLAZENGER V SEC. OF LABOR (RUIZ)

DUNLOP SLAZENGER

VS

SEC. OF LABOR (RUIZ)

300 SCRA 120

[DECEMBER 11, 1998]

NATURE

Petition for certiorari

FACTS

-Respondent union filed a Petition for Certification Election among the supervisory, and technical employees of the petitioner company before the DOLE, Regional Office No. III.

-Petitioner company filed a motion to dismiss based on 1) that the respondent union is comprised of supervisory and rank-and file employees and cannot act as bargaining agent for the proposed unit; (2) that a single certification election cannot be conducted jointly among supervisory and rank-and-file employees; and (3) that the respondent union lacks legal standing since it failed to submit its books of accounts.

-Respondent alleges that it is composed only of supervisory employees and that it has no obligation to attach its books of accounts since it is a legitimate labor organization.

-The mediator arbiter granted the petition of the union. It said that the contention of the respondent that the petitioning union is composed of both supervisory and rank and file employees is not sufficient to dismiss the petition. It can be remedied thru the exclusion-inclusion proceedings wherein those employees who are occupying rank and file positions will be excluded from the list of eligible voters. The secretary of labor affirmed.

HELD

         The petition is meritorious. We agree with the public respondent that supervisors can be an appropriate bargaining unit. This is in accord with our repeated ruling that “[a]n appropriate bargaining unit is a group of employees of a given employer, composed of all or less than the entire body of employees, which the collective interests of all the employees, consistent with equity to the employer, indicate to be best suited to serve reciprocal rights and duties of the parties under the collective bargaining provisions of law. Otherwise stated, it is a legal collectivity for collective bargaining purposes whose members have substantially mutual bargaining interests in terms and conditions of employment as will assure to all employees their collective bargaining rights. A unit to be appropriate must effect a grouping of employees who have substantial, mutual interests in wages, hours, working conditions and other subjects of collective bargaining.” The critical issue, however, is whether or not the respondent union can file a petition for certification election to represent the supervisory employees of the petitioner company. The resolution of this issue depends on whether the respondent union is composed solely of supervisory employees or of both supervisory and rank-and-file employees. Article 245 of the Labor Code clearly provides that “supervisory employees shall not be eligible for membership in a labor organization of the rank-and-file employees . . . .”

       To determine who are supervisory and rank-and-file employees reference has to be made to Article 212 (m) of the Labor Code, as amended, as well as Section 1 (t), Rule I, Book V of the Omnibus Rules Implementing the Labor Code, as amended, viz:

          Managerial employee is one who is vested with powers or prerogatives to lay down and execute management policies and/or to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff, 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 [these Rules].

               Determining the status of supervisory and rank-and-file employees is not a hard row to hoe in labor law. The test of supervisory status as we have repeatedly ruled is whether an employee possesses authority to act in the interest of his employer, which authority should not be merely routinary or clerical in nature but requires the use of independent judgment. Corrollarily, what determines the nature of employment is not the employee’s title, but his job description.

                          In the instant case, the list of monthly paid employees submitted by the petitioner company contains the names of about twenty seven (27) supervisory employees, six (6) managerial employees, one (1) confidential employee and twenty six (26) office and technical employees holding various positions. The list reveals that the positions occupied by the twenty six (26) office and technical employees are in fact rank-and-file positions. We also do not agree with the ruling of the respondent Secretary of Labor that the infirmity in the membership of the respondent union can be remedied in “the preelection conference thru the exclusion-inclusion proceedings wherein those employees who are occupying rank-and-file positions will be excluded from the list of eligible voters.” Public respondent gravely misappreciates the basic antipathy between the interest of supervisors and the interest of rank-and-file employees. Due to the irreconcilability of their interests we held in Toyota Motor Philippines v. Toyota Motors

Philippines Corporation Labor Union viz:

xxx xxx xxx

                    Clearly, based on this provision [Article 245, Labor Code], a labor organization composed of both rank-and-file and supervisory employees is no labor organization at all. It cannot, for any guise or purpose, be a legitimate labor organization. Not being one, an organization which carries a mixture of rank-and-file and supervisory employees cannot possess any of the rights of a legitimate labor organization, including the right to file apetition for certification election for the purpose of collective bargaining. It becomes necessary, therefore, anterior to the granting of an order allowing a certification election, to inquire into the composition of any labor organization whenever the status of the labor organization is challenged on the basis of Article 245 of the Labor Code.

                         Needless to stress, the respondent union has no legal right to file a certification election to represent a bargaining unit composed of supervisors for so long as it counts rank-and-file employees among its members.