CASE DIGEST: TODAY’S KNITTING v NORIEL

TODAY’S KNITTING

VS

NORIEL

75 SCRA 450

[February 28, 1977]

FACTS:

-Philippine National Union Council, on April 1, 1976, filing with the Bureau of Labor Relations a petition for the holding of a certification election. Along with this were 200 signatures of Company’s employees confirming such petition. A petition for intervention on behalf of petitioner Today’s Knitting Free Workers Union. It saw no need for a certification election, asserting that it had already been voluntarily recognized by the management as the bargaining representative.

-Today’s Knitting Company apparently affirmed the assertion that intervenor union, now petitioner, had been recognized by management as representing the minority of the workers. Respondent Union countered with the allegation that there was no legal bar to the petition for certification.

-Med-Arbiter Eusebio M. Jimenez issued an order granting the petition for certification election. The matter was then appealed to the Bureau of Labor Relations. Appeal was deniedl. It ordered a certification election to be conducted by the Bureau within twenty days from receipt of the resolution. Hence this certiorari and prohibition petition with this Court

ISSUE:

 WON arbiter erred in granting the petition of a certificate elections inspite of the company’s recognition that another union is the bargaining representative

HELD:

 NO

-ART.257 of the Labor Code is applicable here. What is required is that the petition for certification election should have in its favor “the written consent of at least 30% of all the employees in the bargaining unit. The duty then cast on the Detector of Labor Relations is to ascertain whether there has been such a compliance. There is no doubt in this case there was evidence that more than a total of two-hundred signatures were obtained by respondent Union in seeking such a certification election. The respondent Director having satisfied himself that the codal requisite had been met, he had no choice but to order such certification. In the language of the above provision, “it shall be mandatory for the Bureau to conduct a certification election for the purpose of determining the representative of the employees in the appropriate bargaining unit and certify the winner as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of all the employees in the unit.”

3. Venue