Art. 1.
Name of Decree
This Decree shall be known as the “Labor Code
of the Philippines.”
Art. 2. Date of Effectivity
This Code shall take effect six (6) months after
its promulgation.
LABOR LEGISLATION – consists of statues, regulations
and jurisprudence governing the relations between
capital and labor, by providing for certain
employment standards and a legal framework for
negotiating, adjusting and administering those
standard and other incidents of employment.
LABOR STANDARDS – law as to which sets out the
least basic terms, conditions and benefits of
employment that employers must provide or comply
with and to which employees are entitled as a matter
of legal right.
- the minimum requirements prescribed
by existing laws, rules and regulations
relating to wages, hours of work, cost-
of-living allowance, and other monetary
and welfare benefits, including
occupational, safety, and health
standards.
LABOR RELATIONS – defines the status, rights and
duties, and the institutional mechanisms that govern
the individual and collective interactions of
employees, employees or their representatives.
LABOR – physical toil although it does not necessarily
exclude the application of skill, thus there is skilled
and unskilled labor.
SKILL – the familiar knowledge of any art or science,
united with readiness and dexterity in execution or
performance or in the application of the art or science
to practical purposes.
WORK - it covers all forms of physical or mental
exertion, or both combined, for the attainment of
some object other than recreation or amusement per
se.
WORKER – may refer to self-employed people and
those working in the service and under the control of
another, regardless of rank, title, or nature of work.
EMPLOYEE – is a salaried person working for another
who controls or supervises the means, manner or
method of doing work.
SOCIAL LEGISLATION – as those laws that provide
particular kinds of protection or benefits to society or
segments thereof in furtherance of social justice.
SOCIAL JUSTICE – neither communism, nor
despotism, nor atomism nor anarchy, but the
humanization of laws and the equalization of social
and economic forces by the State so that justice in its
rational and objectively secular conception may at
least be approximated.
- The promotion of the welfare of all
people, the adoption by the
Government of measures calculated to
ensure economic stability of all the
component elements of society through
the maintenance of proper economic
and social equilibrium in the
interrelations of the members of the
community, constitutionally, through
the exercise of powers underlying the
existence of all governments, on the
time-honored principle of salus populi
est suprema lex.
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND MANDATES
1. The right of the people, including those
employed in the public and private sector, to
form unions, associations, or societies for
purposes not contrary to law shall not be
abridged
2. The right of self-organization shall not be
denied to government employees.
3. Regular farmworkers shall have the right to
own directly or collectively the lands they till.
4. The State shall, by law, and for the common
good, undertake, in cooperation with the
private sector, a continuing program of
urban land reform and housing which will
make available at affordable cost decent
housing and basic services to
underprivileged and homeless citizens in
urban centers and resettlement areas.
5. The State shall protect working women by
providing safe and healthful working
conditions taking into account their
maternal functions, and such facilities and
opportunities that will enhance their welfare
and enable them to realize their full
potential in the service of the nation.
6. Along with other sectors, labor is entitled to
seats allotted to party-list representatives
for three consecutive terms after the
ratification of the Constitution.
7. The goals of the national economy are a
more equitable distribution of opportunities,
income, and wealth; a sustainable increase
LABOR LAW AND LEGISLATION (PRELIM COVERAGE)
in the amount of goods and services
produced by the nation for the benefit of the
people; and an expanding productivity as the
key to raising the quality of life for all,
especially the underprivileged.
8. Congress shall create an agency to promote
the viability and growth of cooperatives as
instruments for social justice and economic
developments.
9. At the earliest possible time, the
Government shall increase the salary scales
of the other officials and employees of the
National Government.
10. Career civil service employees separated
from the service not for cause but as a result
of the reorganization shall be entitled to
appropriate separation pay and to
retirement and other benefits under existing
laws.
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BALANCING OF RIGHTS; THE CONSTITUTIONAL
PRINCIPLE OF SHARED RESPONSIBILTY
The State is mandated to regulate the relations
between workers and employers.
POLICE POWER AS THE BASIS
It is the power of the Government to enact laws,
within constitutional limits, to promote the order,
safety, health, morals and general welfare of society.
It is settled that the state legislatures may enact laws
for the protection of the safety and health of
employees as an exercise of the police power, and
this is true even though such laws affect, not the
health of the community generally, but the health or
welfare of operatives in any given situation.
BIRTH OF THE LABOR CODE
The writing of a labor code began in 1968 under the
leadership of the then Minister of Labor. Mr. Blas F.
Ople, who deserves being regarded as the “Father of
the Labor Code.” The objective was not merely to
consolidate the then existing pieces of labor
legislation – of which there were about sixty scattered
in laws passed before, during and after the
Commonwealth – but also to reorient them to the
needs of economic development and justice. This aim
was in line with the prescription of the
Comprehensive Employment Strategy Mission of the
International Labor Organization (Ranis Report) that
the elevation of real wages, incomes and living
standards was a function of employment generation
and economic expansion.
PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE CODE
1. Labor relations must be both responsive and
responsible to national development.
2. Labor laws or labor relations during the
period of national emergency must
substitute rationality for confrontation;
therefore, strikes or lockdowns give way to a
rational process which is arbitration.
3. Laggard justice in the labor field is injurious
to the workers, the employers and the
public; labor justice can be made expeditious
without sacrificing due process.
4. Manpower development and employment
must be regarded as a major dimension of
labor policy, for there can be no real equality
of bargaining power under conditions of
severe mass unemployment.
5. There is a global labor market available to
qualified Filipinos, especially those who are
unemployed or whose employment is
tantamount to unemployment because of
their very little earnings.
6. Labor laws must command adequate
resources and acquire a capable machinery
for effective and sustained implementation;
otherwise, they merely breed resentment
not only of the workers but also of the
employers.
7. There should be popular participation in
national policy-making through what is now
called tripartism.
SOME LABOR LAWS BEFORE THE PASSAGE OF THE
CODE
There were some sixty pieces of labor laws in effect
when the Labor Code project began. Although most
of them are already abrogated by the Code, some still
relevant because the rationale or policy behind them
has been carried over to the Code and many court
rulings about them remain controlling to this day.
1. Employer’s Liability Act or Act No. 1874 –
enacted on June 9, 1908 by the Philippine
Legislature.
2. Act No. 2549 – enacted on January 21, 1916
which prohibited payment of wages in non-
cash form.
3. Act No. 2071 – prohibiting slavery or
involuntary servitude
4. R.A. No. 1054 – requiring emergency medical
treatment for employees
5. C.A. No. 444 – eight-hour labor law
6. Commonwealth Act No. 103 – created the
Court of Industrial Relations (CIR)
7. P.D. No. 21 – precursor of the National Labor
Relations Commission and the present NLRC,
passed in the early years of the Martial Law
regime.
8. Industrial Peace Act or R.A. 875 – passed in
1953, was the law governing labor-
management relations
9. Blue Sunday Law or R.A. No. 946 – used to
forbid commercial, industrial or agricultural
enterprises to open on any Sunday,
Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Holy
Thursday, and Good Friday.
10. Termination Pay Law or R.A. 1052 as
amended by R.A. No. 1787 – enumerated the
just cause for terminating an employment
without a definite period and allowed
employers to separate an employee by
serving a 15-day notice per year of service or,
instead of notice, by paying an equivalent
separation pay.
LABOR LAW AND LEGISLATION (PRELIM COVERAGE)
RELATED LAWS
1. The Civil Code – describes the nature of
labor-management relations.
2. The Revised Penal Code – the laws that
define and penalize offenses are general
laws and therefore apply to all human
interactions, whether the persons involved
are employers, employees, or otherwise.
3. Special Laws – other related to the subject of
the Labor Code include the SSS law, the GSIS
law, the Agrarian Reform law, the 13th-
month pay law, the Magna Carta for Public
Health Workers, and so forth.
INTERNATIONAL ASPECT
Not to ne overlooked is the international aspect
of our labor laws, considering that the Philippines
is a member of the ILO.
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International Labor Organization (ILO) – is the
UN specialized agency which seeks the
promotion of social justice and internationally
recognized human and labor rights.
Art.3. Declaration of Basic Policy
The State shall afford protection to labor,
promote full employment, ensure equal
work opportunities regardless of sex, race
or creed, and regulate the relations
between workers and employers. The State
shall assure the rights of workers to self-
organization, collective bargaining, security
of tenure, and just and humane conditions
of work.
LABOR LAWS AND SOCIAL-ECONOMIC GOALS
The issues mentioned in this article –
employment, protection to labor, labor-
management relations – are social issues. They
are concerns of labor laws because labor laws are
devices of social equity.
The study of labor law is a study of socio-
economic problems affecting the worker, his
work life, and his co-players in the work
environment. The true task of the student of
labor laws is to examine how those laws hinder
or help the attainment of the country’s socio-
economic goals, how they help or fail to help
improve the quality of life of the masses.
INTERDEPENDENCE
The basic policy is to balance or to coordinate the
rights and interests of both workers and
employers.
Art. 4. Construction in Favor of Labor
All doubts in the implementation and
interpretation of the provisions of this Code,
including its implementing rules and
regulations, shall be resolved in favor of
labor.
INTERPRETATION AND CONSTRUCTION
1. Laborer’s Welfare – should be the primordial
and paramount consideration.
2. Concern for Lowly Worker – the law regards
him with tenderness and even favor and
always with faith and hope in capacity to
help in shaping the nation’s future.
3. Reason for According Greater Protection to
Employees – that an employee or laborer
who waives in advance any benefit granted
him by law does so, certainly not in his
interest or through generosity but under the
forceful intimidation of urgent need, and
hence, he could not have so acted freely and
voluntarily.
4. Justice, the Intention of the Law – the right
to obtain justice is enjoyed by all members
of society, rich or poor, worker or manager,
alien or citizen.
MANAGEMENT RIGHTS
Management has its own rights which, such as, are
entitled to respect and enforcement in the interest of
simple fair play.
1. Right to ROI
2. Right to prescribe rules
3. Right to select employees
4. Right to transfer or discharge employees
Art. 5. Rules and Regulations
The Department of Labor and Employment and
other government agencies charged with the
administration and enforcement of this Code or
any of its parts shall promulgate the necessary
implementing rules and regulations. Such rules
and regulations shall become effective fifteen
(15) days after announcement of their adoption
in newspapers of general circulation.
It has been ruled that administrative regulations and
policies enacted by administrative bodies to interpret
the law which they are entrusted to enforce have the
force of law, and are entitled to great respect.
Art. 6. Applicability
All rights and benefits granted to workers under
this Code shall, except as may otherwise be
provided herein, apply alike to all workers,
whether agricultural or non-agricultural.
1. APPLICABILITY TO GOVERNMENT
CORPORATIONS
The government-owned and -controlled
corporations “with original charter” refer to
corporations chartered by special law as
distinguished from corporations organized
under our general incorporation statute, the
Corporation Code.
2. NON-APPLICABILITY TO GOVERNMENT
AGENCIES
3. APPLICABILITY WITHOUT EMPLOYER-
EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP
LABOR LAW AND LEGISLATION (PRELIM COVERAGE)
QUESTIONS:
1. What is labor law and what does it aim to
achieve?
2. Is Labor law needed in our society?
3. What is Employer-Employee relationship?
How important is it?
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