Victoriano v Elizalde Rope Workers Union 59 SCRA 54 (1974)

Plaintiff is a member of the Elizalde Rope Workers Union who later resigned from his affiliation to the
said union by reason of the prohibition of his religion for its members to become affiliated with any
labor organization. The union has subsisting closed shop agreement in their collective bargaining
agreement with their employer that all permanent employees of the company must be a member of the
union and later was amended by Republic Act No. 3350 with the provision stating "but such agreement
shall not cover members of any religious sects which prohibit affiliation of their members in any such
labor organization".. By his resignation, the union wrote a letter to the company to separate the plaintiff
from the service after which he was informed by the company that unless he makes a satisfactory
arrangement with the union he will be dismissed from the service. The union contends that RA 3350
impairs obligation of contract stipulated in their CBA and discriminatorily favors religious sects in
providing exemption to be affiliated with any labor unions.

ISSUE:

W/N RA 3350 impairs the right to form association.

HELD:

The court held that what the Constitution and the Industrial Peace Act recognize, and guarantee is the
"right" to form or join associations which involves two broad notions, namely: first, liberty or freedom,
i.e., the absence of legal restraint, whereby an employee may act for himself without being prevented
by law; and second, power, whereby an employee may join or refrain from joining an association.
Therefore, the right to join a union includes the right to abstain from joining any union. The exceptions
provided by the assailed Republic Act is that members of said religious sects cannot be compelled or
coerced to join labor unions even when said unions have closed shop agreements with the employers;
that in spite of any closed shop agreement, members of said religious sects cannot be refused
employment or dismissed from their jobs on the sole ground that they are not members of the collective
bargaining union. Thus this exception does not infringe upon the constitutional provision on freedom of
association but instead reinforces it.