SECOND
DIVISION
PHILIPPINE
AIRLINES, INC.,
Petitioner,
G. R. No. 119360
October 10, 1997
-versus-
THE
HON. ACTING SECRETARY OF LABOR
JOSE S. BRILLANTES and THE PHILIPPINE
AIRLINES EMPLOYEES' ASSOCIATION,
Respondents.
R
E S O L U T I O N
TORRES, JR., J.:
In Our
Resolution dated November 18, 1996, the
Court dismissed the instant petition for certiorari filed by Philippine
Airlines, Inc. [PAL], seeking the termination from employment of
certain
members and officers of the respondent union PAL Employees' Association
[PALEA, for staging a strike in violation of the Secretary of Labor's
return
to work order.
In doing so, We
upheld the March 9, 1995 Order
of the respondent Acting Labor Secretary Jose S. Brillantes which meted
the penalty of suspension upon eighteen [18] PALEA officers and members
for eight months, and directing PAL to reinstate them to their
respective
posts after they have served their suspension.cralaw:red
The dispositive
portion of Our decision reads:
With the denial of the prayer for
issuance of
a writ of preliminary injunction on June 26, 1995, the court takes note
that the union officers concerned have since served their suspensions
and
returned to service.
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing
considerations,
the court hereby resolved to DISMISS the petition for certiorari that
is
G.R. No. 119360. The Order of the respondent Honorable Acting Secretary
of Labor Jose S. Brillantes is hereby AFFIRMED.
On December 27,
1996, PAL filed a Motion for Reconsideration,
taking exception to the Court's affirmation of the Acting Secretary's
Order.
The order for the suspension of the eighteen PALEA officers and members
is tagged as a violation of Article 264 of the Labor Code, and
contradicts
previous decisions of the Court upon the said provision, including;
Philippine
Airlines, Inc. vs. Drilon, et. al. [193 SCRA 223, 1991]; Union of
Filipro
Employees vs. Nestle Philippines, Inc. [192 SCRA 396, 1990]; Federation
of Free Workers vs. Inciong [208 SCRA 157, 1992]; St. Scholastica's
College
vs. Torres [210 SCRA 565, 1992].
Clearly, the
unequivocal rule laid down by the
foregoing is that:
A strike that is undertaken despite the
issuance
by the Secretary of Labor of an assumption and/or certification is a
prohibited
activity and thus illegal. The union officers and members, as a result,
are deemed to have lost their employment status for having knowingly
participated
in an illegal act. Stated differently, from the moment a worker defies
a return-to-work order, he is deemed to have abandoned his job. The
loss
of employment status results from the striking employees' own act
an act which is illegal, an act in violation of the law and in defiance
of authority.
The loss of
employment status allegedly results from
the application of the second and third paragraphs of Article 264 of
the
Labor Code, which, petitioner posits, is mandatory:
No strike or lockout shall be declared
after
assumption of jurisdiction by the President or the Minister or after
certification
election or submission of the dispute to compulsory or voluntary
arbitration
or during the pendency of cases involving the same grounds for the
strike
or lockout.
Any worker whose employment has been
terminated
as a consequence of an unlawful lockout shall be entitled to
reinstatement
with full backwages. Any union officer who knowingly participates in
the
commission of illegal acts during a strike may be declared to have lost
his employment status: Provided, That mere participation of a
worker
in a lawful strike shall not constitute sufficient ground for
termination
of his employment even if a replacement had been hired by the employer
during such lawful strike.
The Court need
not dwell on the hermeneutics of the
abovementioned provision of law. The cases cited by the petitioner
leave
no doubt as to the policy of the state not to tolerate actions directed
at the destabilization of the social order, where the relationship
between
labor and management has been endangered by abuse of one party's
bargaining
prerogative, to the extent of disregarding not only the direct order of
the government to maintain the status quo, but the welfare of the
entire
workforce, though they may not be involved in the dispute. The grave
penalty
of dismissal visited upon the guilty parties was a natural consequence,
considering the interest of public welfare.
In the instant
case, there is no doubting the
validity of our observation that in the collective bargaining process,
not only PALEA, but both parties contributed to the volatile atmosphere
emerging despite the Secretary of Labor's status quo order, disrupting
thereby the orderly continuance of negotiations. As observed by the
Acting
Secretary of Labor in his March 9, 1996 Order, "PAL did not come to
this
Office with 'clean hands' in seeking the termination of the officers
and
members of PALEA who participated in the 16 June 1994 strike. As the
records
will show, PAL terminated en masse the employment of 183 union officers
and members of PALEA on 6 July 1994 in violation of our 3 June 1994
Order
enjoining the parties to cease and desist from committing any and all
acts
that might exacerbate the situation." It is for this reason that we
decided
not to mete upon the concerned members and officers of PALEA the
capital
punishment of dismissal from office, notwithstanding the law's sanction
for such a consequence.cralaw:red
This particular
circumstance sets this case apart
from previous instances of labor disputes cited by the petitioner,
where
the striking union officers were dismissed after breaking the return to
work order issued by the Secretary of Labor. Moreover, in the instant
case,
the Court invokes its judicial prerogative to resolve disputes in a way
to render to each interested party the most judicious solution, and in
the ultimate scheme, a resolution of a dispute tending to preserve the
greater order of society.cralaw:red
Thus, We declared
in Our November 18, 1996 resolution,
the peculiar nature of the judicial treatment of labor disputes urges
the
arbiter of the issues involved to maintain a careful eye, if not a
caring
hand, to the interests of the parties, such that industrial peace and
labor-management
stability is preserved.
Private respondents, in the meantime, made
it
known to the Court that the union officers who have been suspended for
twelve months and the other members of the union who have been
suspended
for eight months, in accordance with the Secretary of Labor's order,
have
not been returned to service until this time. These union officers and
members should be immediately reinstated and paid their backwages and
other
accrued benefits, counted from the time they have served their
respective
suspensions until actual reinstatement, undiminished by earnings
derived
elsewhere during the period of their suspension, in accordance with
latest
jurisprudence[1]
affirming such intent of the legislature.cralaw:red
WHEREFORE, in
view of the foregoing, the Court
hereby RESOLVED to DENY, with finality, the motion for reconsideration
filed by the petitioner Philippine Airlines, Inc. Petitioner is hereby
ORDERED to REINSTATE the union members ordered suspended for twelve
months
and eight months respectively under the Acting Secretary of Labor's
March
9, 1995 order, and to PAY them full backwages and other benefits due,
from
the time their suspensions have been served until their actual
reinstatement.cralaw:red
SO ORDERED.cralaw:red
Regalado
and Puno, JJ., concur.
Mendoza, J., took no part.cralaw:red
____________________
Endnote
[1]
Bustamante, et. al. vs. NLRC and Evergreen Farms, Inc., G.R. No.
111651,
November 28, 1996. |