Labor Review Notes 1

PART 1 - LABOR STANDARDS LAW

LABOR
- physical toil
- productive work especially physical work one for wages
- social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages
- measure of the work done by human beings

(Four Factors of Production)

- Labor, Land, Capital, and Enterprise

KINDS OF LABOR LAWS

1. Labor Standards Laws
- 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.

2. Labor Relations Laws

- Laws, rules and regulations which govern the relationship between employees and
their employers, promote the right of the employees to self organization and
collective bargaining, penalise unfair labor practice, and provide modes for the
settlement of labor disputes such as conciliation, mediation, grievance machinery,
voluntary arbitration and compulsory arbitration.

3. Labor Laws and Social Legislation

- Social Legislations are laws, rules and regulations that promote welfare of all
sectors of society (particular kinds of protection and benefits to the society), in
furtherance of social justice.
- Labor Laws directly affect employment directly govern effects of employment.
*All labor laws are social legislations but not all social legislations are labor laws.

SOURCES OF LABOR LAWS

1. 1987 Constitution
a. ArtII Sec10
b. ArtII Sec18
c. ArtXII Sec12
d. ArtXIII Sec1
e. ArtXIII Sec3
f. ArtXIII Sec14

Constitutional provisions on Labor are not Self-executing.

- Consti. mandates of protection to labor and security of tenure may be deemed as
self-executing in the sense that they are automatically acknowledged and
observed without need for any enabling legislation, but not enough to guarantee
full exercise of the rights. It has dangerous tendency of being over-broad and
exaggerated.
eg: ArtXIII Sec3 Right of workers in the fruits of production, and Right of
the enterprise to reasonable returns on investment and to expansion and
growth.

2. Civil Code
a. Contract of Labor (Art 1700-1710)

3. Revised Penal Code

a. Art. 288. Other similar coercions - Compulsory purchase of merch and payment
of wages by means of tokens.

BASES OF LABOR LAWS

1. Police power
- Inherent power of the State to regulate rights and liberty for the common good
Labor Review Notes 2

- Broad (extends to all public needs) and Least limitable, as parens patriae (principle
that political authority carries with it the responsibility for protection of citizens).

Rubi vs Provincial Board of Mindoro

- This is an application for habeas corpus in favor of Rubi and other Manguianes of the
Province of Mindoro. It is alleged that the Maguianes are being illegally deprived of
their liberty by the provincial officials of that province. Rubi and his companions are
said to be held on the reservation established at Tigbao, Mindoro, against their will,
and one Dabalos is said to be held under the custody of the provincial sheriff in the
prison at Calapan for having run away form the reservation.
HELD: Petitioners are not unlawfully imprisoned or restrained of their liberty. Habeas
corpus can, therefore, not issue.
Considered, therefore, purely as an exercise of the police power, the courts cannot fairly
say that the Legislature has exceeded its rightful authority. It is, indeed, an unusual
exercise of that power. But a great malady requires an equally drastic remedy.
Further, one cannot hold that the liberty of the citizen is unduly interfered without when
the degree of civilization of the Manguianes is considered. They are restrained for their
own good and the general good of the Philippines. Nor can one say that due process of
law has not been followed. To go back to our definition of due process of law and equal
protection of the law, there exists a law ; the law seems to be reasonable; it is enforced
according to the regular methods of procedure prescribed; and it applies alike to all of a
class.

JMM Promotion and Mgt, Inc. vs CA

Asociacion de Agricultures de Talisay-Silay vs Talisay-Silay Milling Co

2. Social Justice - promotio

- Promotion of the welfare of all the people (Salus populi est supreme lex)
- adoption of measures by govt to insure economic stability through maintenance of a
proper economic and social equilibrium constitutionally

Calalang vs Williams

Phil. Long Distance Company vs NLRC

HELD: Those who invoke social justice may do so only if their hands are clean and
their motives are blameless and not simply because they happen to be poor.

ART 2: Date of Effectivity

- Nov 1, 1974
- Date of Promulgation: May 1, 1974

ART 3: Declaration of Basic Policy

- Scope of PH Labor laws and social legislation: All Filipino workers, locally or
overseas

PNB vs Cabansag

2009 Bar Exam

4 policies in Sec 3, Art XIII of the Const that are not covered in Art 3 of Labor Code.
Ans:
b. Afford full protection to labor, local and overseas
c. Peaceful concerted activities, including right to strike in accordance with law
d. Promote the principle of shared responsibility between workers and employers, and
Labor Review Notes 3

e. Preferential use of voluntary modes of settling disputes, including conciliation and

shall enforce their mutual compliance therewith to foster industrial peace.

2006 Bar Exam

Purpose of Labor legislation
Ans: To give life into the constitutional mandate of providing protection to labor
(Sec3ArtXIII, CONST), by promoting full employment, ensuring equal work
opportunities regardless of sex, race or creed, regulating the relations between workers
and employers, and assuring that the rights of workers to self-organization, collective
bargaining, security of tenure, and just and humane conditions of work are amply
protected (Art 3, LC)

ART 4: Construction in favor of labor

- Ratio: Greater supply that demand for labor, to protect them from abusing employers.
- Protect labor to the extent of raising them to equal footing in bargaining relations and to
shield them from abuses brought about by the necessity for survival.