LABOR CODE  Can be changed through

lobbying
COLLECTIVE RIGHTS OF LABOR
o Government corporations with
A. Right to Self-Organization original charters
- Existing inequality between workers and  Enjoy Fiscal autonomy
employers  Increase salary through
- State as the heart of unionism Board Resolutions
- Union serves as he mouthpiece - Alliance of Government Workers v.
- Who can join: Rank and file employees Minister of Labor and Employment
(Labor Notes) o Difference between workers in the
- Who cannot join: HR/Managerial private sector and the Government
Positions/Employees occupying position o Government employees
which are confidential and high technical  Terms and conditions of
(Labor Notes) employment are subject to
law.
B. Right to Collective Bargaining o Relations between private employers
Negotiation and employees
- Ultimate objective why workers form a  Voluntary basis
union  Terms and conditions of
- Able to negotiate with the employer on the employment are settled
same level through collective
o Improvement of working conditions bargaining
- XPNS: (Who cannot join) - Collective Bargaining Agreement v.
o High level Collective Bargaining Negotiation
employees/managerial/confidential o Often used interchangeably
o Members of the AFP, PNP, Firemen, o CBA – where labor
Jail guards standards/benefits are included,
- Forms of Collective bargaining takes in usually applies to workers in the
form of: private sector; laws between parties
o Negotiation – major conditions of o CBN – negotiate only; applies to
employment government employees
o Grievance Meetings
o Arbitration C. RIGHT TO PEACEFUL CONCERTED
- Applicability to Government Employees ACTIVITIES
o Government employees in the civil - The right to organization does not involve
service but subject to restrictions the right to strike
 Terms and conditions may be - Public employees are PROHIBITED from
negotiated except those striking
which are already fixed by - Employees from government corporations
law formed under the Corporation Code can
 Salary of government engage in strike (AGW v. Minister of
employees are governed by Labor)
the SSL. - Strike must have Employee-Employer
o Salaries of government employees Relationship (Labor Notes)
 Fixed by salary - A strike must have a ground (Labor Notes)
standardization - A strike must have a procedure – notice of
strike (Labor Notes)
- If violence ensued, the strike is considered
illegal (Labor Notes)
D. RIGHT TO SECURITY OF TENURE
- Article 294, Labor Code
- Just Causes of Termination
o Article 297, Labor Code
- Authorized Causes of Termination
o Articles 297-298, Labor Code
- Classification of Employees
o Regular – performs activities that
are usually necessary or desirable in
the usual business or trade of the
employer
o Project – those employment who are
fixed for a specific purpose
o Seasonal – performs services on a
seasonal nature
o Casual – those who are not regular,
- Contractual or Fixed-Term Employees
seasonal or project employees
o Fixed-term – Added by
jurisprudence (Leyte Geothermal
Power Progressive Employees
Union-ALU-TUCP V. PNOV-
Energy Development Corporation)
- Probationary Employee
o Undergo trial before regularization
(Labor Notes)
o Employer ensures the fitness of the
employee for the job (Labor Notes)
o Enjoys security of tenure
o May be terminated through: (JAF)
 Just cause
 Authorized cause
 Failure to qualify as a regular
employee in accordance with
the reasonable standards
made known by the employer
to the employee at the time of
the engagement
o Failure of the employer to inform the
employee of the reasonable standards
(regularization standards)
 employee is deemed a
regular employee
 Duties of the employer (CE)
 The employer must
Communicate the
regularization
standard to the
probationary
employee
 The employer must make
such communication at the
time of the probationary
employees Employment
o XPN:
 When the job is Self-
descriptive in nature
 Maids
 Cooks
 Drivers
 Messengers
o Only allowed by the Labor Code if
the term was voluntarily and
knowingly entered into by the
parties who must dealt with each
other on equal terms not one
exercising moral dominance over the
other
o Criteria for fixed contracts (PNOC v.
NLRC):
a. The fixed period of employment was
knowingly voluntarily agreed upon by
the parties without duress or improper
pressure being brought to bear upon the
employee and absent any other
circumstances vitiating his consent
b. It satisfactorily appears that the
employer and employee dealt with each
other on more or less equal terms with
no moral dominance whatever being
exercised by the former on the latter
o It cannot be independent, because an
employer-employee relationship
exists (Fuji Network Television v.
Espiritu)
- Project Employees
o Principal Test: In determining
whether an employee is a project
employee and not a regular worker is
whether he was assigned to carry out
a specific project or undertaking the
duration and scope of which were
specified at the time he was engaged
to the project
 Therefore, length of service
is NOT THE
CONTROLLING
FACTOR of the employment
tenure of a project employee
o The end or completion of a project
effectively terminates the
employment of the project
employees.
o If the employees are extended long
after the supposed project was
completed, the employees are
removed from the scope of project
employees and shall be considered as
regulars (Villa v. NLRC)
o Proof of Termination: Upon the
completion of the project, the
employer must present proof of
termination of the services of the
project employees at the nearest
public employment employees
o Regular Employee v. Project
Employee
 RE – legally entitled to
remain in the service of their
employer until that service is
terminated by one or another
of the recognized modes of
terminated of service under
the Labor Code
 PE – coterminous with the
project any may be
terminated upon the
completion of the project
o Kinds of Projects
 First, a project could refer to
a particular job or
undertaking that is within the
regular or usual business of
the employer company, but
which is distinct and separate
and identifiable as such from
other undertakings of the
company
 Second, a project may refer
to a particular job or
undertaking that is not
within the regular business
of the corporation
E. RIGHT TO HUMAN CONDITIONS OF
WORK
- Concerns about the health, safety and
welfare of the workers
- Book 4 on Health Safety and Social
Welfare Benefits
o Provide for medical and dental
services,
o Occupational health and safety
o Compensation program for
employees and their dependents in
the event of work connected
disability benefits
- Title 3 of Book3
o Regulates the working conditions of
special group of employees:
working women, minors,
househelpers and houseworkers
- Empowerment of SOLE
o Provided by the Labor Code. The
SOLE is authorized to order the
stoppage of work or suspension of
operations of an establishment when
non compliance with the law
imposes a grave or imminent danger
to the health and safety workers in
the workplace
F. RIGHT TO LIVING WAGE
- It pertains not only to the worker, but also
his family, as well and the intent is to secure
the health, decency and well being and
improved quality of life for his family
 imbued as it is with social justice
implications
- Minimum Wage v. Living Wage
o MW – Pertains to the floor wage,
below which renumeration cannot
fall
 A Quantitative Concept
equated with subsistence
wage
 The least wage on which an
ordinary individual can be
self-sustaining and obtain
ordinary requirements in life
o LW – takes into consideration not
only the workers himself, but also his
family.
BIRTH OF THE LABOR CODE
- Under the helmship of Minister of Labor and
Employment, Blas Ople
- Objective: To consolidate 60 scattered labor
laws before, during and after the
Commonwealth and to reorient them to the
needs of the economic development and
justice
PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE CODE
a. Must be responsive and responsible for
national development
b. Substitute rationality for confrontation
during period of national emergency
c. Labor justice can be made expeditious
without sacrificing due process
d. Manpower development and employment
must be considered as a major dimension of
labor policy
e. Global market available to qualified
Filipinos
f. Labor laws must have command adequate
resources and acquire a capable machinery
for effective and sustained implementation
g. Popular representation in national policy
making known as Tripartism
SIGNIFICANCE OF FOREIGN DECISIONS
In the absence of any jurisprudence by our Supreme
Court, the interpretation and construction by the
United States Supreme Court shall be controlling
DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF THE LABOR
CODE
- Oriented towards national development
under the character of a developmental law
- Aside from regulating the employer-
employee relationship, it also acts as a tool
for national development
BASIC APPROACH IN THE ENACTMENT
OF THE LABOR CODE – TRIPARTISM
It pertains to the participation and cooperation
among Government, Labor, Management in the
evolvement and formulation of labor policies and
standards.
The SOLE or his duly authorized representatives
may call a national, regional, or industrial tripartite
conference of representative of the government,
workers and employers for the adoption of
voluntary codes designed to promote industrial
peace and social justice or to align labor movement
relations with established priorities in economic and
social development
RELATED LAWS
CIVIL CODE
- Article 1700
- Article 1701
- Article 19
- Article 20
- Article 21
REVISED PENAL CODE
- Article 289
SPECIAL LAWS
- SSS
- GSIS
- Agrarian Reform Law
- 13th Month Pay
- Magna Carta for Public Health Workers
INTERNATIONAL ASPECT
 - INTERNATIONAL LABOR
ORGANIZATION
o Formulates international labor
standards through:
 Conventions
 Recommendations
- INTERNATIONA COMMITMENTS
o Labor is not a commodity
o Freedom of expression and of
association are essential to sustained
progress
o That poverty anywhere constitute
danger to prosperity everywhere
o That war against want requires to be
carried on with unrelenting vigor
within each nation and by continuous
and concerted international effort in
which the representatives of workers
and employers enjoying equal status
with those of government
- ILO CORE CONVENTIONS
o Freedom of Labor Convention
o Freedom of Association and
Protection of Right to Organize
Convention
o Right to Organize and Collective
Bargaining Convention
o Equal Renumeration Convention
o Abolition of Forced Labor
Convention
o Discrimination Convention
o Minimum Wage Convention
o Worst Forms of Labor Convention
- RATIFICATION
o In order for these conventions to be
binding it must be RATIFIED by
the member-states
ARTICLES 3-4
INTEPRETATION AND CONSTRUCTION
- LABORER’S WELFARE
o Liberal interpretation extends not
only in the provisions of the Labor
Code and its Implementing Rules,
but also to the Resolution of Labor
disputes
 Labor as marginalized; Social
Justice
 PLDT v. NLRC
- CONCERN FOR LOWLY WORKER
o The law looks upon the lowly worker
with tenderness, favor and always
with faith and hope in his capacity to
help in shaping the nation’s future
- REASONS FOR AFFORDING
GREATER PROTECTION TO
EMPLOYEES
a. There is greater supply than
demand for labor
b. The need for employment by
labor comes from vital and even
desperate necessity
MANAGEMENT OF RIGHTS
- RIGHTS TO ROI
o Section 3, Article 13
o “Greed is Good”; the existence of
Surplus arms the employer when
confronted by the Union in a
collective bargaining - sharing their
profits to employees
- RIGHT TO PRESCIBE RULES
o Recognition of the employer’s right
to conduct the affairs of his business.
o Employers enjoy a wide latitude of
discretion to REGULATE all the
aspects of employment
o ONLY CRITERION: in the
exercise of its management
prerogative, is that policies, rules
and regulates on work related
activities must be FAIR AND
REASONABLE, and penalties
imposed must be
COMMENSURATE to the offense
involved
- RIGHT TO SELECT EMPLOYEES
o Right of the employer to sell his
labor to such person as he may
choose is the same as the right of an
 employer to purchase labor from any
person it chooses
- RIGHT TO TRANSFER OR
DISCHARGE EMPLOYEES
o Traditionally identified as a
management prerogative
o Based on the employer’s inherent
right to control and manage
effectively its enterprise

ARTICLE 6
APPLICABILITY TO GOVERNMENT
CORPORATIONS
- PNOC-EDC; FTI; NHA – are government
agencies organized in furtherance of the
proprietary functions of the government
o These are subject to the provisions of
the Labor Code, since they were
incorporated under the Corporation
Code of the Philippines
NON-APPLICABILITY TO GOVERNMENT
AGENCIES
- Government agencies are subject to the
Civil Service Laws
APPLICABILITY WITHOUT EMPLOYER-
EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP
- Article 106