T&H SHOPFITTERS CORPORATION / GIN QUEEN CORPORATION, ET AL. V.

T&H SHOPFITTERS
CORPORATION / GIN QUEEN WORKERS UNION, ET. AL.
26 February 2014

Facts:
 In 2003, respondents and other employees of petitioners held their first formal meeting to discuss
the formation of a union to improve their working conditions. The following day (24 Nov) they were
barred from entering petitioners’ factory in Zambales and were ordered to transfer to Subic
purportedly because of an expansion.
 Thereafter, they (17 employees) were repeatedly ordered to take forced leaves due to
unavailability of work.
 The DOLE Regional Office issued a certificate of registration in favor of THS-GQ Union (18 Dec)
 Respondents were not given regular work assignments while subcontractors were continuously
hired to perform their functions. This prompted respondents to seek the assistance of the NCMB.
Subsequently an agreement between petitioners and the union was reached – petitioners agreed
to prioritize regular employees in work distribution. However, petitioners never complied with the
agreement and hired contractual workers instead.
 On 24 March 2004, the union filed a petition for certification election. Eventually the same was
scheduled on 11 October 2004.
 Meanwhile, through a memorandum Huang (Director for GQ) informed respondents that their
office would be relocated to Cabangan, Zambales (which they eventually found to be grasslands).
Respondents were made to work as grass cutters therein.
 On 10 October 2004, (day before the scheduled certification election) petitioners sponsored a
fieldtrip to Iba, Zambales, for its employees and the THS-GQ Union officers and members were
excluded from the same. On the same day, a sales officer of petitioners campaigned against the
union in the certification election.
 During the certification election (held on two days – one for Zambales, one for Subic) and due to
the heavy pressure exerted by petitioners the votes for “no union” prevailed. The union filed its
protest with respect to the certification election.
 Thereafter, the union members were either retrenched or their work days were drastically reduced
to only 3 days in a month.
 Respondents (the union and members of the union) filed a complaint against petitioner before the
LA for Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) by way of union busting, and Illegal Lockout, with moral and
exemplary damages and attorney’s fees. (Respondents treated T&H and Gin Queen as a single
entity and their sole employer)
 Petitioners’ defenses: THS and GQ are separate entities, due to decrease of orders cost-cutting
measures were resorted to (retrenchment + rotation), transfer to a diff factory was due to the
expiration of the lease.
 LA dismissed the complaint. It found that not one of the 17 workers who were transferred to a diff
factory is a complainant in the case. While the union may represent the members, the members
must show their intent to file a case. Respondents failed to prove that there was ULP.
 NLRC reversed. There was ULP because petitioners intervened with the right to organize. NLRC
found that the lessee was actually the wife of Huang and that Gin Queen was renamed to MDL as
an act of fraud. MR was denied.
 CA sustained the NLRC ruling.

Issue: WON THS-GQ is guilty of ULP (specifically paragraphs a, c and e of Art 257)
Held: YES!!! Liable for moral damages – 50K and exemplary damages 35K for each complainant but no
attorney’s fees because under the LC, AF available only when there is unlawful withholding of wages.

Ruling:

 In essence, ULP relates to the commission of acts that transgress the workers’ right to organize.
As specified in Articles 248 [now Article 257] and 249 [now Article 258] of the Labor Code, the
prohibited acts must necessarily relate to the workers’ right to self-organization.
 The questioned acts of petitioners, namely: 1) sponsoring a field trip to Zambales for its
employees, to the exclusion of union members, before the scheduled certification election; 2) the
active campaign by the sales officer of petitioners against the union prevailing as a bargaining
agent during the field trip; 3) escorting its employees after the field trip to the polling center; 4) the
continuous hiring of subcontractors performing respondents’ functions; 5) assigning union
members to the Cabangan site to work as grass cutters; and 6) the enforcement of work on a
rotational basis for union members, taken together, reasonably support an inference that, indeed,
such were all orchestrated to restrict respondents’ free exercise of their right to self-organization.
 Test of WON employer interfered and coerced employees in the exercise of their right to self-
organization (Insular Life Employees Assoc v. Insular Life) - whether the employer has engaged in
conduct which, it may reasonably be said, tends to interfere with the free exercise of employees’
rights; and that it is not necessary that there be direct evidence that any employee was in fact
intimidated or coerced by statements of threats of the employer if there is a reasonable inference
that anti-union conduct of the employer does have an adverse effect on self-organization and
collective bargaining.
 Certification election is the sole concern of the workers, save when the employer, itself, had to file
a petition. But even after such filing, its role in the certification process is a mere bystander. Thus,
petitioners had no business persuading and/or assisting its employees in their legally protected
independent process of selecting their exclusive bargaining representative.
 In labor cases, the quantum of proof necessary is substantial evidence, or that amount of relevant
evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion, even if other
minds, equally reasonable, might conceivably opine otherwise.