CASE DIGEST: ILAW AT BUKLOD NG MANGGAGAWA (IBM) VS DIRECTOR OF LABOR RELATIONS

ILAW AT BUKLOD NG MANGGAGAWA (IBM)

VS

DIRECTOR OF LABOR RELATIONS

91 SCRA 482

Jul 16, 1979

FACTS

-This is a certification election case. The Ilaw at Buklod ng Manggagawa, a duly registered labor union and a member of Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), filed with the Ministry of Labor a petition for certification election.

-Instead of deciding the appeal promptly, the Director turned over the record of the case to the TUCP, a federation of labor unions, allegedly by virtue of an arrangement between the Ministry of Labor and the said federation that cases involving its member-unions must first be referred to it for possible settlement in accordance with its Code of Ethics.

-The TUCP has not decided the controversy. Thus the IBM filed in this Court the instant petition for mandamus to compel the Director of Labor Relations to decide the case, or, in the alternative, to require the TUCP to return to the Director the record of the case.

ISSUE

WON it was legal and proper for the Director of Labor Relations to refer to the TUCP the appeal of the Associated Labor Unions in a certification election case.

HELD

NO.

Ratio The Labor Code never intended that the Director of Labor Relations should abdicate, delegate and relinquish his arbitrational prerogatives in favor of a private person or entity or to a federation of trade unions. Such a surrender of official functions is an anomalous, deplorable and censurable renunciation of the Director’s adjudicatory jurisdiction in representation cases.

Reasoning

a. Article 226 of the Labor Code provides in peremptory terms that the Bureau of Labor Relations and the labor relations divisions in the regional offices of the Ministry of Labor “shall have original and exclusive authority to act, at their own initiative or upon request of either or both parties, on all inter-union and intra-union conflicts, and all disputes, grievances or problems arising from or affecting labor-management relations in all workplaces whether agricultural or non-agricultural, except those arising from the implementation or interpretation of collective bargaining agreements which shall be the subject of grievance procedure and/or voluntary arbitration.”

b. Article 259 of the Labor Code provides that “all certification cases shall be decided within twenty (20) working days. ” Article 260 of the same Code provides that the Bureau of Labor Relations should decide appeals in representation cases “within fifteen (15) working days”, or twenty working days, according to section 10, Rule V, Book V of the Rules and Regulations Implementing the Labor Code. Section 10 further provides that “the decision of the Bureau in all cases shall be final and unappealable.”

DISPOSITION

The president, secretary, or any responsible officer of the TUCP is ordered to return to the Director of Labor Relations the original record of the case. The Director is directed to decide the appeal within ten days from the receipt of the record.