GOYA, INC. vs. GOYA, INC. EMPLOYEES UNION-FFW G.R. No.

170054, 21 January 2013

FACTS:

Goya, Inc., a domestic corporation engaged in the manufacture, importation, a

nd wholesale of top quality food products, hired contractual employees from P
ESO Resources Development Corporation (PESO) to perform temporary and occ
asional services in its factory in Parang, Marikina City. This prompted respond
ent Goya, Inc. Employees Union
FFW (Union) to request for a grievance conference on the ground that the contr
actual workers do not belong to the categories of employees stipulated in the e
xisting CBA. When the matter remained unresolved, the grievance was referred
to the NCMB for voluntary arbitration. They agreed to submit for resolution th
e solitary issue of “whether or not the Company is guilty of unfair labor acts in
engaging the services of PESO, a third party service provider, under the existin
g CBA, laws, and jurisprudence.”

VA dismissed the Union’s charge of ULP for being purely speculative and for lac
king in factual basis, but the Company was directed to observe and comply with
its commitment under the CBA. The Company immediately filed a petition for
review before the Court of Appeals (CA) under Rule 43 of the Revised Rules of Ci
vil Procedure to set aside the directive to observe and comply with the CBA com
mitment pertaining to the hiring of casual employees when necessitated by bus
iness circumstances. Professing that such order was not covered by the sole iss
ue submitted for voluntary arbitration.

Issue:

Was the act of hiring contractual employees a valid exercise of management

prerogative?

Held:

The CA did not serious error when it sustained the ruling the hiring of
contractual employees from PESO was not in keeping with the intent and spirit
of the CBA. In this case, a complete and final adjudication of the dispute between
the parties necessarily called for the resolution of the related and incidental
issue whether the company still violated the CBA but without being guilty of ULP
as, needless to state, ULP is committed only if there is gross violation of the
agreement.

Goya kept on harping that both the VA and the CA conceded that its engagement
of contractual workers from PESO was a valid exercise of management
prerogative is significantly different from acknowledging that such act is a valid
exercise thereof.

What the VA and the CA correctly ruled was that the company’s act of
contracting out/ outsourcing is within the purview of management prerogative.
Both did not say, however, that such is act is a valid exercise thereof. Obviously,
this is due to the recognition that the CBA provisions agreed upon by GOYA and
the Union delimit the free exercise of management prerogative pertaining to the
hiring of contractual employees.

A collective bargaining agreement is the law between the parties. A collective

bargaining agreement or CBA refers to the negotiated contract between a
legitimate labor organization and the employer concerning wages, hours and all
other terms and condition of employment in a bargaining unit. As in all
contracts, the parties in a CBA may establish such stipulations, clauses, terms,
and condition as they may deem convenient provided these are not contrary to
law, morals, goods, customs, public order or public policy. Thus, where the CBA
is clear and unambiguous, it becomes the law between the parties and
compliance therewith is mandated by the express policy of the law.