You can't fire employees due to marriage

Employers are guilty of illegal dismissal under the Labor Code, if and when they terminate the employment of any male or female personnel who gets married. Company policies prohibiting marriage are not only illegal but also unlawful. Illegal company rules are those that create no right nor obligation. Creating unlawful rules make the employer criminal and carry penalties of imprisonment, or fine or both, at the discretion of the Court.

Under Article 134, Book III, Title III, Chapter One, of the Labor Code, as amended, it is a criminal offense for any employer to impose upon a job applicant a condition that he or she should not get married while employed. Any company policy imposing the penalty of dismissal or forced resignation on employees who marries while employed shall be deemed null and void from the very beginning. Such policies have no legal effect. On the contrary, it is an unlawful act on the part of the employers who impose such kind of restrictive rules. This was enunciated by the highest court of the land in the case of Catherine Cagampan vs One Network Bank Inc, GR 217414, on June 22, 2022.

The Court, speaking through Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, that unlike in the previous case of Duncan (Glaxo Wellcome, GR 1662994, September 17, 2004), here in One Network Bank, there was no reasonable business necessity to prohibit a bank employee from marrying a co-employee. The bank formulated a policy that when two employees working for the Bank are subsequently married, one must terminate employment immediately after the marriage. When Catherine married a fellow Bank employee, she was fired since she refused to resign. Both the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC declared the dismissal illegal but the Court of Appeals ruled that the dismissal was a valid exercise of management prerogative. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and agreed with the NLRC.

In Glaxo, which was originally decided by this writer as Voluntary Arbitrator chosen by both management and the union, I declared as valid the policy of the pharma company as valid because there was a reasonable necessity. Glaxo had a policy that when a Glaxo medrep or drug salesman marries a medrep of a rival drug company, like Astrazeneca, one of them should resign. There was a conflict of interest and there was imminent danger that the trade secrets of Glaxo would be revealed to Aztra. My decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals and ultimately by the Supreme Court through the pen of Justice Dante Tinga. I said then that the medrep of Glaxo was "sleeping with the enemy" thereby exposing his company to real and serious threats at corporate espionage.

But the facts in Cagampan vs One Network Bank were different. There was no serious danger nor reasonable business necessity to prohibit marriage among co-Bank employees. Earlier, in the case of Star Paper Corporation et al vs Ronaldo Simbol, GR 164774, April 12, 2006, Justice Reynato Puno, a renowned constitutionalist, explained why company policies prohibiting marriage among co-employees ``violate the rights of the employees under the Constitution and the Labor Code.” He said that the formulation of such policies is not justifiable under the doctrine of management prerogatives. In this case, both the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC favored the company while the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court held that the company's policy against marriage was null and void.

Justice Puno, in ruling in favor of labor and against the company policy, cited a number of provisions of the 1987 Constitution, including Article II, Section 18 on the primacy of labor over capital, Article XIII, Section on the mandate to afford full protection to labor. He also cited Article 1700 of the Civil Code, providing, among others, that the relations between labor and employers are not merely governed by contractual stipulations but are so impressed with public interests that employment stipulations must yield to the common good. Article 1702 dictates that in case of doubts. all labor legislations and all labor contracts shall be construed in favor of the safety and decent living for the laborer.

In the earlier case of PT&T vs NLRC and Grace de Guzman, GR 118978, May 23, 1997, Justice F Regalado, also declared as null and void the policy of management prohibiting marriage between co-employees. These rulings are consistent with the precedent in Gualberto vs Marinduque Mining, GR 52753-R, June 28, 1978.

The Supreme Court, as the strongest protector of our Constitution and laws, has always been faithful in the defense of marriage, as an inviolable social institution, even as the High Court also has always been uncompromising in its vigilance for the full protection of labor. And that is what matters most.