Case Digest: Del Rosario v. CIR and PLASLU, GR No. L-23133, July 13, 1967

Labor Law | Art. 99 Agricultural or Industrial Rates

Facts: 

Hacienda del Rosario, a 200-hectare land, was co-owned by Vicente del Rosario, Ceferina Vda. de del Rosario, and Teresita Reyes, and administered by Diosdado Larrazabal. They leased an additional 107-hectare land owned by the Roman Catholic Church and administered by His Excellency, Archbishop Julio Rosales for large-scale sugar cane planting, processing, and milling.

In 1958, PLASLU (Philippine Land-Air-Sea Labor Union) filed a charge of unfair labor practice before the Court of Industrial Relations (CIR) against the owners for dismissing 87 workers in the hacienda due to their union membership. PLASLU requested the reinstatement of the laborers with back wages.

The owners filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the CIR had no jurisdiction. 

CIR: Ordered the reinstatement of about fifty hacienda workers who were dismissed by reasons of union membership.

Court ruled that in accordance with the doctrine in Victorias Milling Co. vs. CIR,  the complaint should be dismissed as to the agricultural workers such as field laborers planting and harvesting sugar cane in the hacienda. 

As to those whose work is by nature industrial, like the mill laborers, trapicheros, chemists, fuelmen, oilers, mangongogay, tractor and truck drivers, those undertaking or transporting the sugar cane from the field to the mill and then to the market, it held that the same doctrine sustained its jurisdiction.

Issues:

1. WoN the CIR have jurisdiction over the case. YES

2. WoN the finding of unfair labor practice supported by substantial evidence. YES

Held:

1. The first issue leads Us to consider Our rulings in Pampanga Sugar Mills vs. Pasumil Workers' Union and Victorias Milling Co. vs. CIR.

In the Pasumil case, We held that where "petitioner is a highly mechanized industrial concern with the work of planting and harvesting clearly distinguished from that of transporting the cane from the fields, first to a switch and later to the mill x x x all its workers are to be considered industrial workers, except those devoted to purely agricultural work." Reiterating this, We said in the Victorias case that it is "the nature of the work which classifies a worker as one falling under the exemption [from coverage of R.A. 875] as agricultural laborers."

In an hacienda, there may therefore be both agricultural and industrial workers. Regarding the former, exclusive jurisdiction has been given to the Court of Agrarian Relations. As to the latter, exclusive jurisdiction has been placed in the Court of Industrial Relations.

As regards those workers who perform functions the nature of which is industrial, therefore, suit was properly filed in the Court of Industrial Relations.

Against petitioners' contention to the contrary, the record shows that the petitioners' undertaking is a mechanized, one, rendering applicable the norm set forth in the Victorias and Pasumil cases: 

(1) Petitioners already owned 200 hectares, yet they leased 107 hectares more. It would be very difficult for them to profitably carry on under conditions they alleged unless the haciendas are mechanized; 

(2) Petitioners had 2 mills in the haciendas — one in their own land and another in the land leased; 

(3) The field workers were different from the mill workers, showing specialization in the kind of work done; 

(4) The presence of a timekeeper and inspector in the hacienda, showing that the workers had a working schedule, and laborers were made to sign payrolls, a practice typical of industrial concerns; 

(5) The positions in question, mill laborers, trapicheros, chemists, fuelmen, oilers, mangongogay, tractor and truck drivers, those involving taking or transporting sugar cane from the field to the mill and to the market, are positions commonly found in industrial concerns.

2. Petitioners' liability for unfair labor practice is thus premised on Sec. 4-A of Republic Act 875, not under Republic Act 2263. As industrial employees, the laborers in the positions aforementioned were already covered by Republic Act 875, even before the effectivity of R.A. 2263, and were so covered when they were dismissed.

Petitioners claim that the finding of unfair labor practice is not supported by substantial evidence. They failed however, to show why. Petitioners cite the dissenting opinion of Judge Amando Bugayong who believed that there was no illegal dismissal because in letters dated March 18 and 31, 1958, complainants through their lawyer claimed back wages and overtime pay without mention of their alleged dismissal. This however does not indicate that there was no such dismissal, for it could also mean that said laborers at first would have been contented with payment of back wages and overtime pay; but that later, when refused payment thereof, they decided to ask for reinstatement also and thus raised the ground of dismissal as an unfair labor practice.

Petitioners stress that 24 [actually, the CIR said 20] of the 87 complainants were found never to have worked at all in the hacienda, and that 16 [actually the CIR said 14] moved to dismiss the complaint with regard to their claims. All this did not alter the finding that the others were illegally dismissed. Neither do we find significant the fact that only seven witnesses were presented to support the charge, as long as the lower court found them credible; the same is true of petitioners' observation that the witnesses did not agree as to the precise date of their dismissal, whether March 18 or 19, 1958. The fact is that substantial evidence there is, behind the finding that petitioners dismissed the laborers in question of March of 1968 for reason of union membership. The submission that said laborers resigned freely, or were no longer employed by then, or that their dismissals were prompted by financial difficulties, was rejected below as not credible. Such matters relate to findings of facts in regard to which the determinations of the Court of Industrial Relations are conclusive where, as in this case, it has substantial evidence to rest upon.