Labor Relations
Case Digest Compilation
employees taken as a whole raise a suspicion as to the motivation
AHS/Philippines Employees Union vs NLRC for the employer’s action, the failure of the employer to ascribe a
GR No. 73721, March 30, 1987 valid reason therefor may justify an inference that this unexplained
conduct in respect of the particular employee or employees was
Facts: Petitioner, AHS/Philippines Employees Union [FFW], was the inspired by the latter’s union membership or activities. While the
recognized collective bargaining agent of the rank-and-file presence of this mere suspicion neither takes the place of evidence
employees of private respondent AHS/Philippines Inc., a company that the employer’s conduct was improperly motivated nor dispenses
engaged in the sale of hospital and laboratory equipment and Berna with the requirement of proof of the fact, such suspicion, when
and Pharmaton products. A collective bargaining agreement was coupled with other fact which in themselves, might have been
concluded between the parties for the period commencing inadequate to support an adverse finding against the employer, may
December 31, 1981 to November 30, 1984. suffice to sustain a finding that the employer’s action violated the
prohibition of the Act.”
On August 3, 1984, petitioner union filed a notice of strike with the
Bureau of Labor Relations, listing as grounds therefor unfair labor
practice consisting in: 1) Diminution of Benefits; 2) Union Busting; 3)
Illegal Termination; 4) Harassment; 5) Refusal to Bargain; 6)
Violation of the CBA; and 7) Dismissal of Union Officers and
Members.
LA Virginia Son: Rendered a decision declaring the strike staged
by petitioner union illegal and ordering the lifting of the picket
established in the premises of private respondent company. All the
officers of the union who joined and were responsible for the
declaration of said strike were deemed to have lost their employment
status, while the other non-officer employees who sympathized and
joined the strike were ordered reinstated to their former or equivalent
positions without strike duration pay, paid separation pay or the
economic package offered by the company, whichever is higher, in
case reinstatement is not possible.
Dissatisfied, petitioners appealed the labor arbiter’s ruling to the
NLRC en banc, which rendered the assailed decision. Hence, this
petition.
NLRC: With respect to the increase in the area sales quota of the
union president and vice-president, the NLRC found the increase
justified by the change in the sales organization in January 1984,
whereby each field representative, instead of carrying both Berna
and Pharmton products, would concentrate on either one. If further
observed that it was only after six (6) months after the plan had been
in operation and when the union president failed to meet his quota
that said union president filed his grievance; that the grievance was
being threshed out in accordance with the grievance procedure
outlined in the CBA and that any delay in the resolution thereof was
not entirely attributable to the company. Moreover, respondent
NLRC found the setting of the are sales quota not to be ill-motivated
nor related to the president’s union activities. Hence, it conducted
that the union president’s grievance was not a valid ground for a
strike.
Issue: Whether or not the quadrupling of the union president’s area
sales quota was an act of discrimination and hence a valid ground
for strike. – YES.
Ruling: We agree with petitioners that respondent NLRC gravely
abused its discretion in concluding that the increase in the area
sales quota of union president Leones was not an act of
discrimination. The NLRC found the increase in the area sales quota
justified by the change in the sales organization. It, however,
overlooked a very important and crucial factor: that unlike the other
field representatives whose quotas were increased by an average of
98%, that of union president and vice-president were increased
400% and 300%, respectively. No valid explanation was advanced
by respondent company for such marked difference. Considered in
the light of the anti-union attitude exhibited by respondent company
in transferring union president Leones from the main office in Manila
to Cebu when the union was still being organized, and which act was
found by the NLRC as constituting unfair labor practice and union-
busting in connection with the application for clearance to terminate
Leones filed by respondent company, the uneven application of its
marketing plan by the respondent company is patently an act of
discrimination, considered as an unfair labor practice under Article
249[e] of the Labor Code.
“It has previously been indicated that an employer may treat freely
with an employee and is not obliged to support his actions with a
reason or purpose. However, where the attendant circumstances,
the history of employer’s past conduct and like considerations,
coupled with an intimate connection between the employer’s action
and the union affiliations or activities of the particular employee or
