International School Alliance of Educators v.

Quisumbing
Doctrine: The basic test of an asserted bargaining unit's acceptability is whether or not it is
fundamentally the combination which will best assure to all employees the exercise of their
collective bargaining rights.

FACTS:
1. Petitioners work under private respondent International School. The school is authorized to
employ its own personnel selected by it either from Philippine or other nationalities abroad.

2. The school hires both foreign and local teachers as members of its faculty, classifying the
same as: foreign hires and local hires.

3. The School grants foreign hires certain benefits not accorded local hires: like

b. Housing
c. Transportation
d. shipping costs
e. taxes
f. home leave travel allowance
g. salary rate of 25% more than local hires

4. Petitioners contested the difference in salary rates between foreign and local hires. They
claim that it is discriminatory to Filipinos, and is violative of the legal truism of "equal pay
for equal work."

5. The school justifies the difference on the economic disadvantage of foreign hires since they
have to endure dislocation factor and limited tenure.

ISSUE:
WON the legal truism of "equal pay for equal work applies to the school notwithstanding its
international character.

Ruling

1. Yes. The Constitution enjoins the State to "protect the rights of workers and promote their
welfare to afford labor full protection." The State, therefore, has the right and duty to regulate
the relations between labor and capital. These relations are not merely contractual but are so
 impressed with public interest that labor contracts, collective bargaining agreements
included, must yield to the common good. Should such contracts contain stipulations that
are contrary to public policy, courts will not hesitate to strike down these stipulations.

2. Public policy abhors inequality and discrimination. Persons who work with substantially
equal qualifications, skill, effort and responsibility, under similar conditions, should be paid
similar salaries. This rule applies to the School notwithstanding its "international
character".

3. The Constitution, Article 19 of the Civil Code, the Labor Code and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights impregnably institutionalize in this
jurisdiction the long honored legal truism of "equal pay for equal work."

4. The practice of the School of according higher salaries to foreign-hires contravenes public
policy.