01 - Rivera vs. Espiritu

GERARDO F. RIVERA, ET. AL, VS. EDGARDO ESPIRITU, ET. AL.
Justice Quisumbing, 23 January 2002 FACTS: On June 1998, PAL pilots affiliated with the Airline Pilots Association of the Philippines (ALPAP) went on a strike, causing serious losses to the financially beleaguered flag carrier. Faced with bankruptcy, PAL adopted a rehabilitation plan and downsized its labor force by more than one-third. On July 1998, the PAL Employees Association (PALEA) went on strike to protest the retrenchment measures adopted by the airline, which affected 1,899 union members. The strike ended four days later, when PAL and PALEA agreed to a more systematic reduction in PALs work force and the payment of separation benefits to all retrenched employees. On August 1998, then President Estrada issued A.O. 16 creating an Inter-Agency Task Force (Task Force) to address the problems of the ailing flag carrier. The Task Force was composed of different departments. Edgardo Espiritu, then the Secretary of Finance, was designated chairman of the Task Force. Conciliation meetings were then held between PAL management and the three unions representing the airlines employees, with the Task Force as mediator. On September 1998, PAL management submitted to the Task Force an offer by Lucio Tan, Chairman and CEO of PAL, of a plan to transfer shares of stock to its employees. The Directors of PALEA voted to accept Tans offer and requested the Task Forces assistance in implementing the same. Union members, however, rejected Tans offer . Under intense pressure from PALEA members, the unions directors subsequently resolved to reject Tans offer. PAL informed the Task Force that it was shutting down its operations preparatory to liquidating its assets and paying off its creditors. The airline claimed that given its labor problems, rehabilitation was no longer feasible, and hence, the airline had no alternative but to close shop. PALEA sought the intervention of the Office of the President in immediately convening the parties to prevent the imminent closure of PAL. PALEA informed DOLE that it had no objection to a referendum on the Tans offer. However, the votes rejecting the offer won. Consequently, PAL ceased its operations and sent notices of termination to its employees. The PALEA board wrote President Estrada anew, seeking his intervention. PALEA offered a 10-year moratorium on strikes and similar actions and a waiver of some of the economic benefits in the existing CBA. Tan, however, rejected this counteroffer. On 27 September 1998, the PALEA board again wrote the President proposing another set of terms and conditions, subject to ratification by the general membership. Among the signatories to the letter were herein petitioners Rivera, Ramiso, and Aranas, as officers and/or members of the PALEA Board of Directors. PAL management accepted the PALEA proposal and the necessary referendum was scheduled. On October 2, 1998, 5,324 PALEA members cast their votes in a DOLE-supervised referendum. Of the votes cast, 61% were in favor of accepting the PAL-PALEA agreement, while 34% rejected it. So, PAL resumed domestic operations. On the same date, seven officers and members of PALEA filed this instant petition to annul the September 27, 1998 agreement entered into between PAL and PALEA. Petitioners Allegations The controverted PAL-PALEA agreement is void because it abrogated the right of workers to self-organization and their right to collective bargaining The agreement was not meant merely to suspend the existing PAL-PALEA CBA, which expires on September 30, 2000, but also to foreclose any renegotiation or any possibility to forge a new CBA for a decade or up to 2008. It violates the protection to labor policy laid down by the Constitution. ISSUE AND HOLDING: Whether or not the PAL-PALEA agreement of 27 September 1998, stipulating the suspension of the PAL-PALEA CBA unconstitutional and contrary to public policy. NO, the agreement is a valid exercise of the freedom to contract RATIO: Discussion A CBA is a contract executed upon request of either the employer or the exclusive bargaining representative incorporating the agreement reached after negotiations with respect to wages, hours of work and all other terms and conditions of employment, including proposals for adjusting any grievances or questions arising under such agreement. The primary purpose of a CBA is the stabilization of labor-management relations in order to create a climate of a sound and stable industrial peace. In construing a CBA, the courts must be practical and realistic and give due consideration to the context in which it is negotiated and the purpose which it is intended to serve. In the case at hand The assailed PAL-PALEA agreement was the result of voluntary collective bargaining negotiations undertaken in the light of the severe financial situation faced by the employer, with the peculiar and unique intention of not merely promoting industrial peace at PAL, but preventing the latters closure. The Court finds no conflict between said agreement and Article 253-A of the Labor Code. Article 253-A has a two-fold purpose. One is to promote industrial stability and predictability. Inasmuch as the agreement sought to promote industrial peace at PAL during its rehabilitation, said agreement satisfies the first purpose of Article 253-A. The other is to assign specific timetables wherein negotiations become a matter of right and requirement. Nothing in Article 253-A, prohibits the parties from waiving or suspending the mandatory timetables and agreeing on the remedies to enforce the same. In the instant case, it was PALEA, as the exclusive bargaining agent of PALs ground employees, that voluntarily entered into the CBA with PAL. It was also PALEA that voluntarily opted for the 10-year suspension of the CBA. Either case was the unions exercise of its right to collective bargaining. The right to free collective bargaining, after all, includes the right to suspend it. The acts of public respondents in sanctioning the 10-year suspension of the PAL-PALEA CBA did not contravene the protection to labor policy of the Constitution. The agreement afforded full protection to labor; promoted the shared respo nsibility between workers and employers; and the exercised voluntary modes in settling disputes, including conciliation to foster industrial peace."
Petitioners Argument: The 10-year suspension of the CBA under the PAL-PALEA agreement virtually installed PALEA as a company union for said period, amounting to unfair labor practice, in violation of Article 253-A of the Labor Code mandating that an exclusive bargaining agent serves for five years only. The questioned proviso of the agreement reads: a. PAL shall continue recognizing PALEA as the duly certified-bargaining agent of the regular rank-and-file ground employees of the Company; b. The union shop/maintenance of membership provision under the PAL-PALEA CBA shall be respected. SC: The aforesaid provisions, taken together, clearly show the intent of the parties to maintain union security during the peri od of the suspension of the CBA. Its objective is to assure the continued existence of PALEA during the said period. The Court is unable to declare the objective of union security an unfair labor practice. It is State policy to promote unionism to enable workers to negotiate with management on an even playing field and with more persuasiveness than if they were to individually and separately bargain with the employer. For this reason, the law has allowed stipulations for union shop and closed shop as m eans of encouraging workers to join and support the union of their choice in the protection of their rights and interests vis--vis the employer. Petitioners Argument: The agreement installs PALEA as a virtual company union SC: This is untenable. Under Article 248 (d) of the Labor Code, a company union exists when the employer acts [t]o initiate, dominate, assist or otherwise interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization, including the giving of financial or other support to it or its organizers or supporters. The case records are bare of any showing of such acts by PAL. Petitioners Argument: The agreement violates the five-year representation limit mandated by Article 253-A. SC: No, it does not. Under Article 235-A, the representation limit for the exclusive bargaining agent applies only when there is an extant CBA in full force and effect. In the instant case, the parties agreed to suspend the CBA and put in abeyance the limit on the representation period. In sum, we are of the view that the PAL-PALEA agreement dated September 27, 1998, is a valid exercise of the freedom to contract. Under the principle of inviolability of contracts guaranteed by the Constitution, the contract must be upheld.

01 - Rivera vs. Espiritu

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GERARDO F. RIVERA, ET. AL, VS. EDGARDO ESPIRITU, ET. AL.

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