Case Digest: SSS v. SSS Supervisors' Union and CIR, G.R. No. L-31832 October 23, 1982

Labor Law | No Work - No Pay

Facts: 

The Philippine Association of Free Labor Unions (PAFLU) declared a 17-day strike. The strike was staged in defiance of Court of Industrial Relations (CIR) order to maintain the status quo.

The Social Security System (SSS) filed an Urgent Petition to declare the strike illegal.

The SSS Supervisors' Union, filed a Motion for Intervention, claiming that they did not participate in the strike: 

  1. That its members wanted to report for work but were prevented by the picketers from entering the work premises; 
  2. That under the circumstances, they were entitled to their salaries corresponding to the duration of the strike, which could be deducted from the accrued leave credits of their members.
The SSS opposed the demand for the payment of salaries pertaining to the entire period of the strike.

CIR: Issued an Order to ordering the payment of salaries of the members of respondent Union during the strike period, but not to be chargeable to accrued leave credits. 

Issue: WoN the SSS may be held liable for the payment of wages of members of SSS Supervisors' Union who admittedly did not work during the 17-day strike declared in 1968 by the rank and file PAFLU. NO

We find for the petitioner based on the equitable tenet of a "fair day's wage for a fair day's labor."

The age-old rule governing the relation between labor and capital or management and employee is that of a 'fair day's wage for a fair day's labor.' If there is no work performed by the employee there can be no wage or pay, unless of course the laborer was able, willing and ready to work but was illegally locked out, dismissed or suspended. It is hardly fair or just for an employee or laborer to fight or litigate against his employer on the employer's time.

In this case, the failure to work on the part of the members of respondent Union was due to circumstances not attributable to themselves. But neither should the burden of the economic loss suffered by them be shifted to their employer, the SSS, which was equally faultless, considering that the situation was not a direct consequence of the employer's lockout or unfair labor practice. Under the circumstances, it is but fair that each party must bear his own loss.

Considering, therefore, that the parties had no hand or participation in the situation they were in, and that the stoppage of the work was not the direct consequence of the company's lockout or unfair labor practice, 'the economic loss should not be shifted to the employer.' Justice and equity demand that each must have to bear its own loss, thus placing the parties in equal footing where none should profit from the other there being no fault of either. 


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