Chapter 1

Exercise of police power of the state

SANTOS v NLRC AND ST. LUKE'S MEDICAL CENTER, INC.
While the right of workers to security of tenure is guaranteed by the Constitution, its exercise may be
reasonably regulated pursuant to the police power of the State. Consequently, persons who desire to engage in the
learned professions requiring scientific or technical knowledge may be required to take an examination as a
prerequisite to engaging in their chosen careers. Respondent-appellee being engaged in the hospital and health care
business, is a proper subject of the cited law; thus, having in mind the legal requirements of these laws, the latter
cannot close its eyes and [let] complainant-appellant's private interest override public interest. Complainant-appellant
cannot insist on her "sterling work performance without any derogatory record" to make her qualify as an x-ray
technician in the absence of a proper certificate of Registration from the Board of Radiologic Technology which can
only be obtained by passing the required examination. The law is clear that the Certificate of Registration cannot be
substituted by any other requirement to allow a person to practice as a Radiologic Technologist and/or X-ray
Technologist (Technician).

CBA
2. DOLE v Pawis ng Makabayang Pilipino
The omission of the phrase more than between after and three hours in the present CBA spells a big
difference. The reversion to the wording of previous CBAs can only mean that the parties intended that free meals be
given to employees after exactly, or no less than, three hours of actual overtime work.
The disputed provision of the CBA is clear and unambiguous. The terms are explicit and the language of the CBA
is not susceptible to any other interpretation. Hence, the literal meaning of free meals after three (3) hours of
overtime work shall prevail, which is simply that an employee shall be entitled to a free meal if he has rendered
exactly, or no less than, three hours of overtime work, not after more than or in excess of three hours overtime work.
The exercise of management prerogative is not unlimited. It is subject to the limitations found in law, a collective
bargaining agreement or the general principles of fair play and justice. This situation constitutes one of the limitations.
The CBA is the norm of conduct between petitioner and private respondent and compliance therewith is mandated by
the express policy of the law.

Interpretation of labor law, rationale and intent

ABELLA vs. NLRC, ROMEO QUITCO and RICARDO DIONELE, SR.
The purpose of Article 284 as amended is obvious--the protection of the workers whose employment is
terminated because of the closure of establishment and reduction of personnel. Without said law, employees like
private respondents in the case at bar will lose the benefits to which they are entitled for the 33 years of service in
the case of Dionele; and 14 years in the case of Quitco. Although they were absorbed by the new management of the
hacienda, in the absence of any showing that the latter has assumed the responsibilities of the former employer, they
will be considered as new employees and the years of service behind them would amount to nothing. It is well-settled
that in the implementation and interpretation of the provisions of the Labor Code and its implementing regulations,
the workingman's welfare should be the primordial and paramount consideration.

4. MANAYA v ALABANG COUNTRY CLUB INCORPORATED

Respondent is a regular employee. Petitioner was not able to convincingly disprove complainants claims that at the
outset, he was directly hired by it as a maintenance helper on August 1989. Although said respondent alleges that
complainant was hired by its job contractor, Supreme Construction, it failed to submit in evidence the Contract of
Service it had entered into in order to establish the entry of complainant as deployed by said company for his duties
at Alabang Country Club, Inc. pursuant to the said Agreement. The existence of an employer-employee relationship
between petitioner and respondent is fortified by the fact that during his stint with the respondent, petitioner was
given the opportunity to attend a seminar/training on refrigeration and air conditioning from January 1995 to February
1995. Equally significant is Article 106 of the Labor Code, as amended, which provides that legitimate job contracting
is permitted, but labor-only contracting is prohibited.

5. CLEMENTE v GSIS
Petitioner should receive death benefits for her deceased husband, basing the claim on the theory of increased risk.
Article 167(L) of the Labor Code and Section 1 (b) Rule III of the Amended Rules on Employees' Compensation, for
the sickness and the resulting disability or death to be compensable, the sickness must be the result of an
occupational disease listed under Annex "A" of the Rules with the conditions therein satisfied; otherwise, proof must
be shown that the risk of contracting the disease is increased by the working conditions.
The medical discussions in the case support the theory of increased risk. Petitioners husband, being the janitor of the
Ilocos Norte Skin Clinic, was the employee most exposed to the dangerous concentration of infected materials, and
not being a medical practitioner, least likely to know how to avoid infection. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to
conclude that his working conditions definitely increased the risk of his contracting the aforementioned ailments.

Nicario v NLRC
Employees in Mancao Supermarket rendered 4-1/2 hours of overtime everyday, 7 days a week. It is a well-settled
doctrine, that if doubts exist between the evidence presented by the employer and the employee, the scales of
justice must be tilted in favor of the latter. It is a time-honored rule that in controversies between a laborer and
his master, doubts reasonably arising from the evidence, or in the interpretation of agreements and writing should
be resolved in the formers favor. Accordingly, we uphold the finding that petitioner rendered overtime work,
entitling her to overtime pay.
Interpretation of employment contract
ST. THERESA'S SCHOOL OF NOVALICHES FOUNDATION and ADORACION ROXAS vs. NLRC
The term "backwages" has been defined as that for earnings lost by a worker due to his illegal
dismissal. Backwages are generally granted on grounds of equity. Payment thereof is a form of relief that restores the
income lost by reason of such unlawful dismissal. Jurisprudence is filled to the brim with cases wherein backwages
were awarded to an employee illegally dismissed. But where, as in this case of a pitiful employee rendered hapless by
her lawyer's inaction or ignorance, the dismissal has been adjudged valid and lawful, the challenged award of
backwages is decidedly improper and contrary to law and jurisprudence.

Art 221 technical rules not binding

BANTOLINO v COCA-COLA BOTTLERS PHILS., INC
Rules of evidence are not strictly observed in proceedings before administrative bodies like the NLRC where
decisions may be reached on the basis of position papers only. Under Art. 221 of the Labor Code, the rules of evidence
prevailing in courts of law do not control proceedings before the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC. Further, it notes that the
Labor Arbiter and the NLRC are authorized to adopt reasonable means to ascertain the facts in each case speedily and

objectively and without regard to technicalities of law and procedure, all in the interest of due process. Hence, to
reiterate, administrative bodies like the NLRC are not bound by the technical niceties of law and procedure and the
rules obtaining in courts of law. Indeed, the Revised Rules of Court and prevailing jurisprudence may be given only
stringent application, i.e., by analogy or in a suppletory character and effect. In the case at bar, the submission by
respondent, that an affidavit not testified to in a trial, is mere hearsay evidence and has no real evidentiary value,
cannot find relevance in the present case considering that a criminal prosecution requires a quantum of evidence
different from that of an administrative proceeding. Under the Rules of the Commission, the Labor Arbiter is given the
discretion to determine the necessity of a formal trial or hearing. Hence, trial-type hearings are not even required as
the cases may be decided based on verified position papers, with supporting documents and their affidavits.
Applicability
Juco v nlrc
Although SC ruled in National Housing Corporation v. Juco that employees of government-owned and/or
controlled corporations, whether created by special law or formed as subsidiaries under the general Corporation Law,
are governed by the Civil Service Law and not by the Labor Code, this ruling has been supplanted by the 1987
Constitution. Thus, the said Constitution now provides:
The civil service embraces all branches, subdivision, instrumentalities, and agencies of the Government, including
government owned or controlled corporations with original charter. (Article IX-B, Section 2[1])
Reiterating the case of Trade Union of the Philippines and Allied Services (TUPAS) v. National Housing Corporation, the
SC held that the NHA is now within the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor and Employment, it being a
government-owned and/or controlled corporation without an original charter. Furthermore, it also held that the
workers or employees of the NHC (now NHA) undoubtedly have the right to form unions or employees organization
and that there is no impediment to the holding of a certification election among them as they are covered by the
Labor Code.
Austria v NLRC
An ecclesiastical affair involves the relationship between the church and its members and relate to matters of
faith, religious doctrines, worship and governance of the congregation. Examples of this so-called ecclesiastical affairs
to which the State cannot meddle are proceedings for excommunication, ordinations of religious ministers,
administration of sacraments and other activities with which attached religious significance. The case does not even
remotely concern any of the abovecited examples. While the matter at hand relates to the church and its religious
minister it does not ipso facto give the case a religious significance. In this case, petitioner was not excommunicated
or expelled from the membership of the SDA but was terminated from employment. Indeed, the matter of terminating
an employee, which is purely secular in nature, is different from the ecclesiastical act of expelling a member from the
religious congregation. The State, through the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC, has the right to take cognizance of the
case and to determine whether the SDA, as employer, rightfully exercised its management prerogative to dismiss an
employee. This is in consonance with the mandate of the Constitution to afford full protection to labor.

CHAPTER 3
NATURE OF WORK an employment is deemed regular when an employee is engaged and perform activities
which are usually necessary or desirable to the business or trade of an employer even if there is a written or oral
agreement to the contrary.
Hacienda Fatima v. National Federation of Sugarcane Workers Food & General Trade
For respondents to be excluded from those classified as regular employees, it is not enough that they perform
work or services that are seasonal in nature. They must have also been employed only for the duration of one season.
Respondents repeatedly worked as sugarcane workers for petitioners for several years. Evidently, petitioners
employed respondents for more than one season. Therefore, the general rule of regular employment is applicable.
If the employee has been performing the job for at least a year, even if the performance is not continuous &
merely intermittent, the law deems the repeated & continuing need for its performance as sufficient evidence of the
necessity if not indispensability of that activity to the business. Hence, the employment is considered regular, but only
w/ respect to such activity & while such activity exists. Seasonal workers who are called to work from time to time &
are temporarily laid off during off-season are not separated from service in said period, but merely considered on
leave until re-employed (De Leon v. NLRC). Respondents, having performed the same tasks for petitioners every
season for several years, are considered the latter's regular employees for their respective tasks. Petitioners' eventual
refusal to use their services even if they were ready, able and willing to perform their usual duties whenever these
were available and hiring of other workers to perform the tasks originally assigned to respondents amounted to illegal
dismissal of the latter.
ASSOCIATION OF TRADE UNIONS (ATU) v ABELLA
The petitioners are not regular employees but project employees.

"Project employees are those employed in connection with a particular construction project. Non-project
(regular) employees are those employed by a construction company without reference to any particular project.
Project employees are not entitled to termination pay if they are terminated as a result of the completion of
the project or any phase thereof in which they are employed, regardless of the number of projects in which they have
been employed by a particular construction company. Moreover, the company is not required to obtain clearance from
the Secretary of Labor in connection with such termination. What is required of the company is report to the nearest
Public Employment Office for statistical purposes."
In this case, the contracts of employment of the petitioners attest to the fact that they had been hired for specific
projects, and their employment was coterminous with the completion of the project for which they had been hired.
Said contracts expressly provide that the workers' tenure of employment would depend on the duration of any phase
of the project or the completion of the awarded government construction projects in any of their planned phases.
Further, petitioners were informed in advance that said project or undertaking for which they were hired would end on
a stated or determinable date.
ABS-CBN VS NAZARENO (2006) G.R. 164156
Respondents are considered regular employees of ABS-CBN and are entitled to the benefits granted to all regular
employees. Where a person has rendered at least one year of service, regardless of the nature of the activity
performed, or where the work is continuous or intermittent, the employment is considered regular as long as the
activity exists. As provided under Article 280 of the Labor Code. The employer-employee relationship is also present in
the case.