35.

PAGKAKAISA NG MGA MANGGAGAWA SA TRIUMPH INTERNATIONAL UNITED

LUMBER AND GENERAL
WORKERS OF THE PHILIPPINES (PMTIULGWF) vs. PURA FERRERCALLEJA

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT SUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES RESPRESENTED BY PETITIONER

UNION POSSESS MANAGERIAL STATUS

HELD: NO. Test of supervisory or managerial status depends

on whether a person possesses authority to act in the interest of his
employer and whether such authority is not merely routinary or
clerical in nature but requires the use of independent judgment.

The public respondent, in its factual findings, found that the supervisory employees
sought to be represented by the respondent union are not involved in policymaking
and their recommendatory powers are not even instantly effective since the same
are still subject to review by at least three managerial heads (department manager,
personnel manager and general manager) before final action can be taken. Hence,
it is evidently settled that the said employees do not possess a managerial status.
The fact that their work designations are either managers or supervisors is of no
moment considering that it is the nature of their functions and not the said
nomenclatures or titles of their jobs which determines their statuses.
36. PAPER INDUSTRIES CORPORATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, petitioner, vs.
HON. BIENVENIDO E. LAGUESMA

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT THE CONCERNED SUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES

AND SECTION HEADS POSSESS MANAGERIAL STATUS

HELD: NO. In United PepsiCola

Supervisory Union (UPSU) v. Laguesma, we had occasion to elucidate on the term
managerial employees. Managerial employees are ranked as Top Managers,
Middle Managers and First Line Managers. Top and Middle Managers have the
authority to devise, implement and control strategic and operational policies
while the task of First Line Managers is simply to ensure that such policies are
carried out by the rank and file employees of an organization. Under this distinction,
managerial employees therefore fall in two (2) categories, namely, the managers
per se composed of Top and Middle Managers, and the supervisors
composed of First Line Managers. Thus, the mere fact that an employee is
designated manager does not ipso facto make him one. Designation should be
reconciled with the actual job description of the employee, for it is the job description
that determines the nature of employment.

In the petition before us, a thorough dissection of the job description of the concerned
supervisory employees and section heads indisputably show that they are not actually
managerial but only supervisory employees since they do not lay down company policies.
PICOPs contention that the subject section heads and unit managers exercise the
authority to hire and fire is ambiguous and quite misleading for the reason that any
authority they exercise is not supreme but merely advisory in character. Theirs is not a final
determination of the company policies inasmuch as any action taken by them on matters
relative to hiring, promotion, transfer, suspension and termination of employees is still
subject to confirmation and approval by their respective superior. Thus, where such power,
which is in effect recommendatory in character, is subject to evaluation, review and
final action by the department heads and other higher executives of the company, the same,
although present, is not effective and not an exercise of independent judgment as required
by law.
37. UNITED PEPSICOLA SUPERVISORY UNION (UPSU), petitioner, vs. HON.
BIENVENIDO E. LAGUESMA and PEPSICOLA PRODUCTS, PHILIPPINES, NC.,
respondents.

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT ARTICLE 245 IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL AS TO

BANNING THE SECURITY GUARDS, SUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES TO FORM
UNIONS?

HELD: NO. The right guaranteed in Art. III, 8 is subject to the condition that its
exercise should be for purposes not contrary to law. In the case of Art. 245, there is
a rational basis for prohibiting managerial employees from forming or joining labor
organizations.
38. SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES FEDERATION OF LABOR (SPFL), petitioner, vs.
HONORABLE PURA FERRER CALLEJA

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT EMPLOYEES OF CONFIDENTIAL PAYROLL BE

EXCLUDED FOR THE BARGAINING UNIT DUE TO NON PAYMENT OF UNION
FEES

HELD: NO. As regards the employees in the confidential payroll, the petitioner has
not shown that the nature of their jobs is classified as managerial except for its
allegation that they are considered by management as occupying managerial
positions and highly confidential. Neither can payment or nonpayment of union dues
be the determining factor of whether the challenged employees should be excluded from the
bargaining unit since the union shop provision in the CBA applies only to newly hired
employees but not to members of the bargaining unit who were not members of the union at
the time of the signing of the CBA. It is, therefore, not impossible for employees to be
members of the barganing unit even though they are nonunion members or not paying
union dues.
39. philtranco v BLR

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT CONFIDENTIAL EMPLOYEES ARE ENTITLED TO FORM AND

BE PART OF A UNION.

HELD: NO. It, therefore, follows that the members of the KASAMA KO who are
professional,
technical, administrative and confidential personnel of PHILTRANCO performing
managerial functions are not qualified to join, much less form a union. This
rationalizes
the exclusion of managers and confidential employees exercising managerial
functions
from the ambit of the collective bargaining unit. As correctly observed by Med-
Arbiter
Adap:
... managerial and confidential employees were expressly excluded within
the operational ambit of the bargaining unit for the simple reason that
under the law, managers are disqualified to be members of a labor
organization.
On the other hand, confidential workers were not included because either
they were performing managerial functions and/or their duties and
responsibilities were considered or may be categorized as part and parcel
of management as the primary reason for their exclusion in the bargaining
unit. The other categorized employees were likewise not included because
parties have agreed on the fact that the aforementioned group of workers
are not qualified to join a labor organization at the time the agreement was
executed and that they were classified as outside the parameter of the
bargaining unit. (Rollo, pp. 28-29)
40. golden farms v calleja

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT CONFIDENTIAL EMPLOYEES ARE EXEMPT FROM JOINING

UNIONS
HELD: YES. We have decreed as disqualified from bargaining with management in case of
Bulletin Publishing Co. Inc. vs. Hon. Augusto Sanchez, etc. (144 SCRA 628) reiterating
herein the rationale for such ruling as follows: 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 or that the Union can be company dominated with the
presence of managerial employees in Union membership. A managerial employee is defined
under Art. 212 (k) of the new Labor Code as one who is vested with powers or prerogatives
to lay down and execute management policies and/or to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff,
recall, discharge, assign or discipline employees, or to effectively recommend such
managerial actions. All employees not falling within this definitions are considered Rank
and file employees for purposes of this Book.

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 bargaining agreement. This is Especially 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.
41. PIER 8 V CONFESSOR

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT FOREMEN AND LEGAL SECRETARIES ARE EXCLUDED FROM
JOINING UNIONS
HELD: YES. Foremen are chief and often especially trained workmen who work with and
commonly are in charge of a group of employees in an industrial plant or in construction
work. They are the persons designated by the employer management to direct the work of
employees, and to superintend and oversee them. They are representatives of the employer
management with authority over particular groups of workers, processes, operations, or
sections of a plant or an entire organization. In the modern industrial plant, they are at
once a link in the chain of command and the bridge between management and labor. In the
performance of their work, foremen definitely use their independent judgment and are
empowered to make recommendations for managerial action with respect to those
employees under their control. Foremen fall squarely under the category of supervisory
employees, and cannot be part of rank and file unions.

AS FOR THE LEGAL SECRATARIES are neither managers nor supervisors. Their work is
basically routinary and clerical. However, they should be differentiated from rankandfile
employees because they are tasked with, among others, the typing of legal documents,
memoranda and correspondence, the keeping of records and files, the giving of and
receiving notices, and such other duties as required by the legal personnel of the
corporation. Legal secretaries therefore fall under the category of confidential employees.
AND THUS CANNOT JOIN LABOR UNIONS
42. SAN MIGUEL V LAGUESMA

ISSUE: WHETHER OR NOT AN EMPLOYEE WHO HAS ACCESS TO A CONFIDEMTIAL

INFORMATION BE CONSIDERED AS CONFIDENTIAL EMPLOYEE AND BE EXCLUDED
FROM THE BARGANING UNIT
HELD:
It is evident that whatever confidential data the questioned employees may handle
will have to relate to their functions. From the foregoing functions, it can be gleaned
that the confidential information said employees have access to concern the
employers internal business operations. As held in Westinghouse Electric
Corporation v. National Labor Relations Board, an employee may not be excluded
from appropriate bargaining unit merely because he has access to confidential
information concerning employers internal business operations and which is not
related to the field of labor relations. MORESO, It must be borne in mind that Section
3 of Article XIII of the 1987 Constitution mandates the State to guarantee to all
workers the right to self-organization. Hence, confidential employees who may be
excluded from bargaining unit must be strictly defined so as not to needlessly
deprive many employees of their right to bargain collectively through
representatives of their choosing.