In what many legal experts consider a major victory for business owners and management against union leaders, the Supreme Court has issued on July 22, 2015, a very important decision affirming the validity of the Visayan Electric Company's decision to fire its union president some years ago. He was found guilty of causing the publication of what management considered a libelous article that damaged the reputation of VECO owners and tarnished the good name of the power firm. This was in a case entitled VECO Employees Union - ALU-TUCP, et al vs VECO, GR 205575. Whilst this is an unfortunate setback for unionism , to our mind, it is an important triumph for the rule of law.
The records show that VECO dismissed the union president whose identity we have chosen to withhold in order to protect his name and honor. The article that he caused to be published "dishonored and blackened the memory of former corporate officials" and moreover, tended "to incite not just public condemnation of VECO but antagonism and obstruction against rate increases in electricity, that it may be allowed by law, to fix." The company, according to the High Court, has reasonably "lost its trust in him and his ability to perform his task with utmost efficiency and loyalty expected of an employee x x x."
The Supreme Court minced no words in invoking settled jurisprudence, thus : "Settled is the rule that an employer cannot be compelled to retain an employee whose acts are inimical to the interests of the employer. A company has the right to dismiss such employees if only as a measure of self-preservation. Long years of service was not considered as a mitigating, but instead, an aggravating factor, because, as the Court held that "the longer an employee stays in the service of the company, the greater is his responsibility for knowledge and compliance with the norms of conduct and the code of discipline."
The highest court of the land in this case of VECO held: "While it is the State's responsibility to afford protection to labor, this policy should not be used as an instrument to oppress management and capital." The Court cautioned arbiters and NLRC commissioners that "in resolving disputes between labor and capital, fairness and justice should always prevail. Social justice does not mandate that every dispute should automatically be decided in favor of labor." We are always reminded that what should prevail is the paramount rule of law.
The Supreme Court ended its ruling by stressing that: "Justice is to be granted to the deserving and dispensed in the light of the established facts and applicable law and doctrine." While many of my opinions are pro-labor, this writer having come from, and still belongs to the working class, it is our sworn duty as a member of the bar to remind all employees, especially union leaders, that the rights of labor do not include freedom to malign, besmirch or defame the good names of businessmen. Labor and capital can debate and argue decently and honorably but not below the belt.
Your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins. Unions and their leaders cannot invoke freedom of expression as a license to destroy the reputation of their employers. They can agree and disagree but not to hit each other in disagreeable ways. This case should serve as a warning to all union leaders, and even to management as well. The law may be harsh but it is the law.