Pidi Vs NLRC

PHILIPS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT, INC.
VS NLRC
Facts:
- PIDI is a domestic corporation engaged in the manufacturing and marketing of electronic products. Since 1971, it had a total of 6 collective
bargaining agreements with private respondent Philips Employees Organization-FFW (PEO-FFW), a registered labor union and the certified
bargaining agent of all rank and file employees of PIDI.
- In the first CBA, the supervisors (referred to in RA 875), confidential employees, security guards, temporary employees and sales representatives
were excluded in the bargaining unit. In the second to the fifth, the sales force, confidential employees and heads of small units, together with the
managerial employees, temporary employees and security personnel were excluded from the bargaining unit. The confidential employees are the
division secretaries of light/telecom/data and consumer electronics, marketing managers, secretaries of the corporate planning and business manager,
fiscal and financial system manager and audit and EDP manager, and the staff of both the General Management and the Personnel Department.
- In the sixth CBA, it was agreed that the subject of inclusion or exclusion of service engineers, sales personnel and confidential employees in the
coverage of the bargaining unit would be submitted for arbitration. The parties failed to agree on a voluntary arbitrator and the Bureau of Labor
Relations endorsed the petition to the Executive Labor Arbiter of the NCR for compulsory arbitration.
- March 1998, Labor Arbiter: A referendum will be conducted to determine the will of the service engineers and sales representatives as to their
inclusion or exclusion in the bargaining unit. It was also declared that the Division Secretaries and all staff of general management, personnel and
industrial relations department, secretaries of audit, EDP, financial system are confidential employees are deemed excluded in the bargaining unit.
- PEO-FFW appealed to the NLRC; NLRC declared PIDI's Service Engineers, Sales Force, division secretaries, all Staff of General Management,
Personnel and Industrial Relations Department, Secretaries of Audit, EDP and Financial Systems are included within the rank and file bargaining
unit, citing the Implementing Rules of E.O 111 and Article 245 of the Labor Code (all workers, except managerial employees and security personnel,
are qualified to join or be a part of the bargaining unit)
Issue:
-Whether service engineers, sales representatives and confidential employees of petitioner are qualified to be part of the existing bargaining unit
- Whether the "Globe Doctrine" should be applied
Held:
NLRC decision is set aside while the decision of the Executive Labor Arbiter is reinstated. Confidential employees are excluded from the bargaining
unit while a referendum will be conducted to determine the will of the service engineers and sales representatives as to their inclusion or exclusion
from the bargaining unit, but those who are holding supervisory positions or functions are ineligible to join a labor organization of the rank and file
employees but may join, assist or form a separate labor organization of their own.
On the main issue raised before Us, it is quite obvious that respondent NLRC committed grave abuse of discretion in reversing the
decision of the Executive Labor Arbiter and in decreeing that PIDI's "Service Engineers, Sales Force, division secretaries, all Staff of
General Management, Personnel and Industrial Relations Department, Secretaries of Audit, EDP and Financial Systems are included
within the rank and file bargaining unit."
In the first place, all these employees, with the exception of the service engineers and the sales force personnel, are confidential
employees. Their classification as such is not seriously disputed by PEO-FFW; the five (5) previous CBAs between PIDI and PEO-FFW
explicitly considered them as confidential employees. By the very nature of their functions, they assist and act in a confidential capacity
to, or have access to confidential matters of, persons who exercise managerial functions in the field of labor relations. 12 As such, the
rationale behind the ineligibility of managerial employees to form, assist or join a labor union equally applies to them.
In Bulletin Publishing Co., Inc. vs. Hon Augusto Sanchez, 13 this Court elaborated on this rationale, thus:
. . . The rationale for this inhibition has been stated to be, because if these managerial employees would belong to or
be affiliated with a Union, the latter might not be assured of their loyalty, to the Union in view of evident conflict of
interests. The Union can also become company-dominated with the presence of managerial employees in Union
membership.
In Golden Farms, Inc. vs. Ferrer-Calleja, 14 this Court explicitly made this rationale applicable to confidential employees:
This rationale holds true also for confidential employees such as accounting personnel, radio and telegraph
operators, who having access to confidential information, may become the source of undue advantage. Said
employee(s) may act as a spy or, spies of either party to a collective bargainingagreement. This is specially true in
the present case where the petitioning Union is already the bargaining agent of the rank-and-file employees in the
establishment. To allow the confidential employees to join the existing Union of the rank-and-file would be in violation
of the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement wherein this kind of employees by the nature of their functions/
positions are expressly excluded.
Ratio:
The exclusion of confidential employees:
The rationale behind the ineligibility of managerial employees to form, assist or join a labor union equally applies to confidential
employees. With the presence of managerial employees in a union, the union can become company-dominated as their loyalty cannot be assured. In
Golden Farms vs Calleja, the Court states that confidential employees, who have access to confidential information, may become the source of undue
advantage.
As regards to the sales representatives and service engineers, according to the OSG, there is no doubt that they are entitled to form a union as they are
not disqualified by law from doing so.
Globe Doctrine:
Globe Doctrine states that in determining the proper bargaining unit, the express will or desire of the employees shall be considered, they
should be allowed to determine for themselves what union to join or form. The best way is through a referendum, as decreed by the Executive Labor
Arbiter. However, in this case, since the only issue is the employees' inclusion in or exclusion from the bargaining unit in question, the Globe
Doctrine has no application in this case. The doctrine applies only in instance of evenly balanced claims by competitive groups for the right to be
established as the bargaining unit. (many unions 'competing' to be the bargaining representative?)

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PHILIPS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT, INC.

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