Labor Law – It consists of statutes, regulations and jurisprudence governing

the relations between labor and capital, by providing for certain employment
standards and a legal framework for negotiating, adjusting and administering
those standards and other incidents of employment.

It is classified into three: (1) The Law on Labor Standards; (2) The Law on Labor
Relations; and (3) The Law on Welfare Legislation

Labor Standards Law – That which sets out the minimum terms, conditions
and benefits of employment that ER’s must provide or comply with and to which
EE’s are entitled as a matter of legal right.

Eg. 8-hour labor law

Labor Relations Law – That which defines [S R D & IM]

> the status, rights and duties

> and the institutional mechanisms

that govern the individual and collective interaction of ER’s and EE’s or their
representatives.

Eg. Book V of Labor Code

Welfare Legislation – designed to take care of contingencies which may affect

workers, e.g. where there is loss of income for research beyond the worker’s
control.

Eg. Social Security Law.

Labor law is likewise classified as labor legislation and social legislation;

which are distinguished as follows: Labor Legislation consists of statutes,
regulations and jurisprudence governing the relations between capital and
labor by:

(a) providing for certain terms and conditions of employment or (b) providing a
legal framework within which these terms and conditions and the employment
relationships may be negotiated, adjusted and, administered; while Social
Legislation includes all laws that provide particular kinds of protection or
benefits to society or segments thereof in furtherance of social justice. In that
sense, labor laws are necessarily social legislation. It promotes public welfare

Sources of labor laws:

1. Constitution

2. Legislation such as the Labor Code of the Philippines; Civil Code and other
Special Laws involving labor

3. Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Labor Code of the Philippines

4. Contract/Collective Bargaining Agreement- which is considered once

executed by the parties as the law between the parties

5. Company Policy (China Banking Corporation vs. Borromeo, 440 SCRA 622,
2004)

6. Company past practices (DOLE Phils. Vs. Pawis ng Makabayang Obrero,

395 SCRA 112, 2003)

Related laws:

Civil Code of the Philippines – Art. 19., Art. 1700, Art. 1701, Art. 1702, Art.
1703, Art. 1708, Art. 1709, and Art. 1710

Revised Penal Code:

Art. 272- Slavery

Art. 273 – Exploitation of Child Labor

Art. 274- Services rendered under compulsion in payment of debt.

Art. 278 – Exploitation of minors

Art. 291- Revealing secrets with abuse of office

Art. 292- Revelation of industrial secrets

Art. 289- Formation, maintenance and prohibition of combination of capital or

labor through violence or threats.
Special laws:

SSS Law (R.A. 8282)

GSIS Law (R.A. 8291)

National Health Insurance Act (R.A. 7875, as amended)

Paternity Leave Act (R.A. 8187)

Retirement Pay Law

Home Development Development Fund Law (R.A. 9679)

Anti-sexual Harassment Act (R.A. 7877)

Special Protection of Children Agaisnt Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination

Act (R.A. 9231)

13th month Pay Law (P.D. 851, as amended)

Migrant Workers an Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 (R.A. 8042)

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (R.A. 6657, as amended)

Magna Carta for Public Health Workers (R.A. 7305)

Limited Portability Law (R.A. 7699)

An Act Allowing the Employment of Night Workers (R.A. 10151)

Magna Carta for Disabled Persons (R.A. 7277)

Domestic Workers Act or Batas Kasambahay (R.A. 10361)

The TESDA law

History and Origin

Basis for Enactment: The salient provisions of the 1987 Constitution of the
Philippines which serves as basis for enactment of labor laws are as follows:

Art. II, Sec.5. The maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life,
liberty, and property, and the promotion of general welfare are essential for the
enjoyment by all the people of the blessing of democracy.

Art. II, Sec. 18. The State affirms labor as a primary social economic force. It
shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare.
Art. XIII, Sec. I. The Congress shall give highest priority to the enactment of
measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity,
reduce social, economic and political inequalities, and remove cultural
inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the common
good.

To this end, the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and
disposition of property and its increments.

Moreover, labor and social legislation are enacted pursuant to the police
power of the State. This is its inherent power to enact wholesome and
reasonable laws to promote order, safety, health, morals and general welfare of
society. In its exercise the state may interfere with personal liberty, with
property and with business and occupation. (Calalang vs. Williams).

Due process clause and the freedom of contract may no longer be

invoked to challenge labor and social legislation. This has long been discarded
since the 1937 case of West Coast Hotel vs. Parish (US) and the 1924 case
of Pp. vs. Pomar (RP).

Labor relation laws enable workers to obtain from their employers more
than the minimum benefits set by labor standard laws

Constitutional Provisions involving labor:

Q: What are the salient provisions involving labor under the 1987 Philippine
Constitution?

A: The salient provisions involving labor under the 1987 Philippine

Constitution are as follows:

1. Art. II, Sec. 9, Const. : The State shall promote a just and dynamic social
order that will ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free
the people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services,
promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and an improved quality of
life for all.

2. Art. II, Sec. 10, Const. : The State shall promote social justice in all phases
of national development.

3. Art. II, Sec. 13, Const. : The State recognized the role of the youth in
nation-building and shall promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual,
intellectual, and social well-being. . .
4. Art. II, Sec. 14, Const. : The State recognizes the role of women in
nation-building, and shall ensure their fundamental equality before the law of
women and men.

5. Art. II, Sec. 18, Const. : The State affirms labor as a primary social
economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare.

6. Art. XIII, Sec. 1, Const. : The Congress shall give highest priority to the
enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to
human dignity, reduce social, economic, and political inequalities, and remove
cultural inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the
common good.

To this end, the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and
disposition of property and its increments.

7. Art. XIII, Sec. 3, Const. : The State shall afford full protection to labor,
local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full
employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.

It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to 1) self organization, 2)

collective bargaining and negotiations, and 3) peaceful and concerted
activities including the right to strike in accordance with law.

They shall also participate in policy and decision-making

processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law.

The State shall promote the principle of shared responsibility

between workers and ER’s and the preferential use of voluntary modes in
settling disputes, including conciliation, and shall enforce mutual
compliance therewith to foster industrial peace.

The State shall regulate the relations between worker’s and ER’s,
recognizing the right of labor to its just share in the fruits of production
and the right of enterprises to reasonable returns in investment,
expansion and growth. (memorize)

8. Art. XIII, Sec. 4, Const. : The State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian
reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular farmworkers, who
are landless, to win collectively or collectively the lands they till or, in the case of
other farmworkers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof . . .
9. Art. XIII, Sec. 11, Const. : The State shall adopt an integrated and
comprehensive approach to health development which shall endeavor to make
essential goods, health and other social services available to all the people at
affordable cost . . .

The present Constitution has gone further than the 1973 Constitution in
guaranteeing vital social and economic rights to marginalized groups of society,
including labor. The framers of the Constitution intended to give primacy to the
rights of labor and afford the sector “full protection” regardless of the
geographical location of the workers and whether they are organized or not
(Globe Mackay vs. NLRC).

Under the 1935 Constitution, it provides that “the State shall afford
protection to labor, especially to working women and minors, and shall regulate
the relation between landowner and tenant, and between labor and capital in
industry and in agriculture. The State may provide for compulsory arbitration.”

10. Art. XIII, Sec. 14, Const. : The State shall protect working women by
providing safe and healthful working conditions xxx

11. Art. XVI, Sec. 8, Const.: The State, shall from time to time, review to
upgrade the pensions and other benefits due to retirees of both the government
and the private sectors.

Three aggregates of power against which the individual employee needs

protection:

1. collective labor – Union

2. collective capital - management

3. collective bargaining relationship

The law, while protecting the rights of laborers, does not authorize the
oppression or destruction of the employer

The principle of Laissez Faire - Laissez faire or the principle of free

enterprise never found full acceptance in this jurisdiction . . . (ACCFA vs.
CUGCO)
What does social justice envision? It envisions [E, R, C]

(a) equitable diffusion of wealth and political power for the common good;

(b) regulation of the acquisition, ownership, use and disposition of property and
its increments; and

(c) creation of economic opportunities based on freedom of initiative and

self-reliance. (Art. XIII, Sec. 1 & 2, Const. ; Alcantara)

Definition [H, E, P, A]- Social justice is neither communism nor despotism, nor
atormism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of
social and economic forces so that justice in its rational and objectively secular
conception may at least be approximated. It means the promotion of the
welfare of the people, the adoption of measures by the government to ensure
economic stability of all the competent elements of society, through the
exercise of powers underlying the existence of all governments on the
time-honored principle of salus populi est suprema lex. (Calalang vs.
Williams)

What does social justice guarantee? Social justice does not champion
division of property of economic status; what it guarantees are equality of
opportunity, equality of political rights, equality before the law, equality between
values given and received, and equitable sharing of the social and material
goods on the basis of efforts exerted in their production. (Guido vs. RPA)

“Those who have less in life should have more in law”

“Equal pay for equal wok”

Limitation of the invocation of the policy of social justice:

The policy of social justice is not intended to countenance wrongdoing
simply because it is committed by the underprivileged. At best it may mitigate
the penalty but it certainly will not condone the offense. Those who invoke
social justice may do so only if their hands are clean and their motives
blameless and not simply because they happen to be poor. (PLDT vs. NLRC)

Specific Labor Rights

 Art. XIII, Sec. 3, Const. : In the relation between workers and ER’s the
following rights shall be assured by the State:

- Right to security of Tenure

- Right to just and humane Conditions of work

- Right to share in the fruits of production

- Right to receive a living Wage

- Rights to self-organization

- Right to collective bargaining

- Right to collective negotiations

- Right to peaceful and concerted Activities including the right to strike

- Right to participate in policy and Decision-making processes (WACT BOND)

The first four rights refer to the rights of labor under labor standards, while
the rests refer to the rights of labor under labor relations.

Only to those that affect the rights of employees and have repercussions
on their right to security of tenure.

Protection to Labor - The law must protect labor, at least to the extent of raising
him to equal footing in bargaining relations with capital and to shield him from
abuses brought about by the necessity for survival. It is safe to presume,
therefore, that an EE or laborer who waives in advance any benefit granted him
by law does so, certainly not in his interest or through generosity but under the
forceful intimidation of urgent need; and hence, he could not have so acted,
freely and voluntarily. (Sanchez vs. Harry Lyons)

Other Rights to be considered in relation to the rights of labor:

Art. II, Sec. 10, Const. : No law impairing the obligation of contracts shall be
passed.
Concept of Compassionate Justice: disregarding rigid rules and giving due
weight to all the equities of the case

Eg. years of service without derogatory record taken into account

harshness of penalty also taken into account

Art. III, Sec. 16, Const. : All persons shall have the right to a speedy
disposition of their cases before all judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative
bodies.

Art. III, Sec. 18 (2), Const. : No involuntary servitude in any form shall exist
except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted.

Art. III, Sec. 8. The right of the people, including those employed in the public
and private sectors to form unions, associations and societies for purposes not
contrary to law, shall not be abridged.