Note: This is the second trip to the Supreme Court in the same representation dispute. The first, San Miguel Corporation Supervisors and Exempt Employees Union v. Laguesma, G.R. No. 110399, August 15, 1997, is item 5 of this week's list and is digested separately; it held that supervisors 3 and 4 and the exempt employees are not confidential employees merely because they handle technical and internal business data, and that the Cabuyao, San Fernando and Otis plants form a single bargaining unit. Read the two together — the 1997 case supplies the rule, this one applies it to specific job descriptions. On numbering: the decision quotes Article 245 as amended by R.A. No. 9481 and Article 258, now Articles 255 and 270 under DOLE Department Advisory No. 01, s. 2015. Two published-text defects are reproduced rather than corrected: footnote 30 duplicates a clause in Article 245 ("the supervisor's union operating within the supervisors' union operating within the same establishment"), and footnote 39 renders Article 258's second paragraph as "[a]ll certification election cases shall be decided within twenty (20) days" where the Code reads "certification cases" and "working days." Footnote 26 also miscites Sugbuanon as "G.R. No. 381 Phil. 414," conflating the docket and report citations.
Facts
- In San Miguel Corporation Supervisors and Exempt Union v. Laguesma, G.R. No. 110399 (1997), the Court had already held that supervisory levels 3 and 4 and the exempt employees of SMFI are not confidential employees "because the same do not pertain to labor relations," and that the Cabuyao, San Fernando and Otis plants, having "community or mutuality of interests," form a single bargaining unit. That ruling is the premise of everything that follows.
- At the pre-election conferences a discrepancy emerged: SMFI submitted 23 eligible voters for San Fernando and 33 for Cabuyao; the union listed 60 and 82.
- On September 30, 1998 the election was held — 46 "Yes", 0 "No", 2 spoiled, and 76 segregated ballots out of 124 cast.
- On the same day SMFI filed Omnibus Objections and Challenge to Voters, saying the challenged employees were confidential, or assigned to live chicken operations outside the unit, or job grade 4 doing managerial work, or from the Barrio Ugong plant, or not SMFI employees, or members of other unions. Filed on election day, not in the inclusion-exclusion proceedings that precede it.
- With the challenged votes counted the tally was 149 eligible voters, 121 valid votes, 118 "Yes" against 3 "No." On April 12, 1999 the 76 segregated ballots were opened — 72 "Yes", 3 "No", one spoiled.
- On April 13, 1999 the Med-Arbiter certified the union, the "Yes" vote having taken 97% of the valid votes.
- On July 30, 1999 the Acting Undersecretary affirmed, excluding only four individuals — two belonging to another union, two being employees of San Miguel Corporation, a separate entity.
- On April 28, 2000, in CA-G.R. SP No. 55510, the Court of Appeals affirmed with modification, further excluding the Human Resource Assistant and the Personnel Assistant. Reconsideration was denied November 28, 2000.
- SMFI came here arguing the appellate court had enlarged the unit by taking in "live" chicken operations and had wrongly kept the Payroll Master in it. Decided August 1, 2011 — thirteen years after the election.
Issue
Is the position of Payroll Master — and every position with access to salary and compensation data — that of a confidential employee excluded from the unit, or does the second criterion of the cumulative test require that the information be labor relations information? And do the duties of a Human Resource Assistant and a Personnel Assistant meet that criterion?
Secondary issue. Whether the Court of Appeals departed from G.R. No. 110399 by defining a unit that includes employees in "live" chicken operations alongside "dressed" chicken processing, or whether the community or mutuality of interests test makes them one.
Ancillary issues. Whether the petition is a "rehash" of what G.R. No. 110399 settled, certification proceedings being quasi-judicial and attaining finality; and whether SMFI had standing at all under the bystander rule.
Ruling
NO as to the Payroll Master; YES as to the Human Resource Assistant and Personnel Assistant. "[S]uch fact does not apply to the position of Payroll Master and the whole gamut of employees who … has access to salary and compensation data"; the position "does not involve dealing with confidential labor relations information," and "[s]ince the nature of his work does not pertain to company rules and regulations and confidential labor relations, it follows that he cannot be excluded." The other two "belong to the category of confidential employees" because "in the discharge of their functions, both gain access to vital labor relations information which outrightly disqualifies them from union membership."
Secondary issue. NO departure. "[T]here should be only one bargaining unit for the employees in Cabuyao, San Fernando, and Otis … involved in 'dressed' chicken processing and Magnolia Poultry Farms engaged in 'live' chicken operations," since "the specific tasks of each division are actually interrelated and there exists mutuality of interests."
Ancillary issues. YES, a rehash. "[A]pplying the doctrine of res judicata, the issue … pertaining to the coverage of the employees who would constitute the bargaining unit is now a foregone conclusion," and in any event "an employer lacks the personality to dispute" a certification election.
"WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED. The Decision dated April 28, 2000 and Resolution dated November 28, 2000 of the Court of Appeals, in CA-G.R. SP No. 55510, which affirmed with modification the Resolutions dated July 30, 1999 and August 27, 1999 of the Secretary of Labor, are AFFIRMED. SO ORDERED."
Ratio
- The Court opened by denying the questions any novelty — the inclusion of levels 3 and 4 and the exempt employees, the community-of-interests test, and the confidential-employee category "are not novel," all having been settled in G.R. No. 110399.
- On the unit it applied National Association of Free Trade Unions v. Mainit Lumber, where a Sawmill Division and a Logging Division in different towns were one unit: bargaining history "is not decisive or conclusive"; "[t]he test of grouping is community or mutuality of interest"; and "the basic test … is whether or not it is fundamentally the combination which will best assure to all employees the exercise of their collective bargaining rights."
- The Mainit Lumber reasoning transferred directly: "[t]heir functions mesh with one another. One group needs the other in the same way that the company needs them both. There may be differences as to the nature of their individual assignments, but the distinctions are not enough to warrant the formation of a separate bargaining unit." So too here — "[a]lthough they seem separate and distinct from each other, the specific tasks of each division are actually interrelated."
- On confidentiality it restated the two-fold cumulative test and its purpose: "[t]he exclusion from bargaining units of employees who, in the normal course of their duties, become aware of management policies relating to labor relations is a principal objective sought to be accomplished by the 'confidential employee rule.'"
- It acknowledged the broader dictionary sense of the term and then refused to let it govern. Granting that "[c]onfidential employees, such as accounting personnel, should be excluded … as their access to confidential information may become the source of undue advantage," still "such fact does not apply to the position of Payroll Master."
- It located the source of the exclusion candidly in implication rather than text: "although Article 245 … limits the ineligibility … to managerial employees, jurisprudence has extended this prohibition to confidential employees."
- Its rationale runs in both directions: if confidential employees affiliate, the union "might not be assured of their loyalty in view of evident conflict of interests" and "can also become company-denominated"; and such employees "may act as a spy or spies of either party to a collective bargaining agreement."
- Measured against the actual job descriptions, the Human Resource Assistant's work "necessarily involves labor relations, recruitment and selection of employees, access to employees' personal files and compensation package," and the Personnel Assistant's "the recording of minutes for management during collective bargaining negotiations, assistance to management during grievance meetings and administrative investigations, and securing legal advice for labor issues."
- On finality and standing the Court closed hard: certification proceedings "are quasi-judicial in nature and … can attain finality"; "[l]aw and policy demand that employers take a strict, hands-off stance"; "[a] labor bargaining representative, to be effective, must owe its loyalty to the employees alone and to no other." With that it "writes finis to the issues raised so as to forestall future suits of similar nature."
Doctrine
The cumulative test applied to positions. Confidential employees are "those who (1) assist or act in a confidential capacity, in regard (2) to persons who formulate, determine, and effectuate management policies in the field of labor relations," and "[t]he two criteria are cumulative." Salary and compensation data is not labor relations information — a position whose work "does not pertain to company rules and regulations and confidential labor relations" cannot be excluded. A Human Resource Assistant and a Personnel Assistant whose duties include CBA negotiations, grievance meetings, administrative investigations and legal advice on labor issues "gain access to vital labor relations information which outrightly disqualifies them." Source of the exclusion: Article 245 reaches only managerial employees; "jurisprudence has extended this prohibition to confidential employees," the rationale being both the union's assurance of loyalty and the risk that such employees "may act as a spy or spies of either party." On units: "[t]he test of grouping is community or mutuality of interest"; bargaining history "is not decisive or conclusive." Finality: certification proceedings "are quasi-judicial in nature and, therefore, decisions rendered in such proceedings can attain finality." Bystander: an employer "lacks the personality to dispute" a certification election, save where it petitions under Article 258 after being requested to bargain.
Limits. The confidential-employee holding is position-specific, not category-specific — the Court did not exempt payroll work as a class but read the actual job description and found no labor-relations content in it. By the same method an HR or personnel title is not automatically disqualifying either; what disqualified these two was the recorded content of their duties. The Court's own remark that "[c]onfidential employees, such as accounting personnel, should be excluded" must be read with that caution: it describes Golden Farms, where the accounting personnel's information was labor-related — not a rule that accountants are always out. On the unit, the ruling turns on interrelatedness in fact; a division genuinely severed from the rest would still be its own unit, as the four individuals excluded below show, two of them being employees of a different corporation. The res judicata holding is confined to issues actually settled in G.R. No. 110399; a genuinely new eligibility question would not be foreclosed — but it would have to be raised in the inclusion-exclusion proceedings, not as an election-day objection. Renumbering: Articles 245 and 258 are now 255 and 270.
Full Digest — Recitation Format
Gist
Having lost the same questions in G.R. No. 110399, San Miguel Foods, Inc. (SMFI) kept litigating them. After a certification election in which San Miguel Corporation Supervisors and Exempt Union took 97% of the valid votes, SMFI argued that the Court of Appeals had improperly enlarged the bargaining unit by taking in employees engaged in "live" chicken operations — breeding chicks and growing chickens — when the unit approved in 1997 covered only "dressed" chicken processing; and that the position of Payroll Master, along with everyone else with access to salary and compensation data, should be excluded as confidential. The Supreme Court denied the petition. The live and dressed operations are "actually interrelated and there exists mutuality of interests," so they form one appropriate unit. The Payroll Master's work "does not pertain to company rules and regulations and confidential labor relations," so he stays in — while the Human Resource Assistant and Personnel Assistant, whose duties run to CBA negotiations, grievance meetings and legal advice on labor issues, are properly excluded. The Court closed by reminding SMFI that a certification election is the sole concern of the workers and that certification rulings attain finality.
Facts
- In San Miguel Corporation Supervisors and Exempt Union v. Laguesma, G.R. No. 110399 (1997), the Supreme Court had already held that supervisory employees levels 3 and 4 and the exempt employees of SMFI are not confidential employees "because the same do not pertain to labor relations, particularly, negotiation and settlement of grievances," even though they handle confidential data on technical and internal business operations; and that the employees of the Magnolia Poultry Products Plants in Cabuyao, San Fernando and Otis, having "community or mutuality of interests," constitute a single bargaining unit. That ruling is the premise of everything that follows, and the reason the Court would ultimately invoke res judicata.
- Pursuant to that decision, the DOLE-NCR conducted pre-election conferences, at which a discrepancy in the list of eligible voters emerged: SMFI submitted 23 employees for the San Fernando plant and 33 for Cabuyao, while the union listed 60 and 82 respectively.
- On August 31, 1998, Med-Arbiter Agatha Ann L. Daquigan ordered Election Officer Cynthia Tolentino to proceed with the certification election under Section 2, Rule XII of Department Order No. 9.
- On September 30, 1998, the certification election was held. The tally was 46 "Yes", 0 "No", 2 spoiled, and 76 segregated ballots — 124 total votes cast across the Cabuyao and San Fernando plants.
- On the same day, September 30, 1998, SMFI filed its Omnibus Objections and Challenge to Voters, contending that certain employees could not vote because they were (1) confidential employees; (2) assigned to live chicken operations, outside the unit; (3) job grade level 4 but performing managerial work and scheduled for promotion; (4) from the Barrio Ugong plant; (5) not SMFI employees; or (6) members of other unions. The objections were filed on election day itself, not in the inclusion-exclusion proceedings that precede it.
- On October 21, 1998, the Med-Arbiter directed the union to prove that the listed employees were covered by the original petition and belonged to the unit, and directed SMFI to substantiate its objections.
- The union answered that the unit contemplated in the original petition was the Poultry Division of San Miguel Corporation, now SMFI; that it covered operations in Calamba, Laguna, Cavite and Batangas, home-based in either Cabuyao or San Fernando, Pampanga; and it submitted individual declarations from each challenged voter.
- With the challenged votes counted, the final tally was 149 eligible voters, 121 valid votes cast, 3 spoiled ballots and 124 total votes — 118 "Yes" against 3 "No."
- On February 17, 1999, the Med-Arbiter directed the parties to appear on March 9, 1999 for the opening of the segregated ballots; on April 12, 1999 they were opened, yielding 72 "Yes", 3 "No" and one spoiled ballot out of the 76.
- On April 13, 1999, the Med-Arbiter certified the union as exclusive bargaining agent of the supervisors and exempt employees of the Magnolia Poultry Products Plants in Cabuyao, San Fernando and Otis, the "Yes" vote having taken 97% of the valid votes cast.
- On July 30, 1999, the Acting DOLE Undersecretary affirmed, modifying only to exclude four individuals — George C. Matias and Alma Maria M. Lozano, who belonged to another union, and Joannabel T. Delos Reyes and Marilyn G. Pajaron, who were employees of San Miguel Corporation, a separate entity. SMFI's partial motion for reconsideration was denied on August 27, 1999.
- On April 28, 2000, in CA-G.R. SP No. 55510, the Court of Appeals affirmed with modification, further excluding those holding the positions of Human Resource Assistant and Personnel Assistant. Reconsideration was denied on November 28, 2000.
- SMFI brought this petition, arguing that the Court of Appeals had expanded the unit fixed in G.R. No. 110399 and had wrongly kept the Payroll Master in it. The case was decided August 1, 2011 — thirteen years after the election it questioned.
Arguments of the Parties
A. Petitioner San Miguel Foods, Inc. The unit argument was one of fidelity to the earlier judgment: G.R. No. 110399 had identified the employees who could vote as the supervisors (levels 1 to 4) and exempt employees of the San Miguel Poultry Products Plants in Cabuyao, San Fernando and Otis, so the Court of Appeals "erred in expanding the scope of the bargaining unit so as to include employees who do not belong to or who are not based in its Cabuyao or San Fernando plants." It drew a line between two kinds of work: the employees covered in 1997 were engaged in "dressed" chicken processing — "handling and packaging of chicken meat" — whereas the unit as redrawn takes in "live" chicken operations, "those who breed chicks and grow chickens." On confidentiality, it asserted that the appellate court "erred in not excluding the position of Payroll Master in the definition of a confidential employee," and prayed that "the said position and all other positions with access to salary and compensation data be excluded from the bargaining unit."
B. Respondent San Miguel Corporation Supervisors and Exempt Union. The union did not re-argue the merits so much as deny that they were open. SMFI's proposed exclusions were "a rehashed issue which was already settled in G.R. No. 110399," and "the issue of union membership coverage should no longer be raised as a certification election already took place on September 30, 1998, wherein respondent won with 97% votes." On the unit's scope, it had shown before the Med-Arbiter that the unit contemplated in the original petition was the whole Poultry Division, covering operations in Calamba, Cavite and Batangas with home bases at Cabuyao and San Fernando, and it had backed each challenged vote with an individual declaration.
C. Common Ground. Neither side disputed the election figures — 149 eligible voters, 124 votes cast, 118 "Yes" and 3 "No" after the segregated ballots were opened, a 97% result — nor the exclusion of Matias, Lozano, Delos Reyes and Pajaron, which SMFI had won below and the union did not contest here. Both accepted G.R. No. 110399 as governing; they differed on what it had decided. And both accepted the two-fold test as the standard — the dispute was whether a Payroll Master satisfies its second criterion.
Issue
A. Main Issue (Topic/Subtopic-Centered). Is the position of Payroll Master — and, more broadly, every position with access to salary and compensation data — that of a confidential employee excluded from the bargaining unit, or does the second criterion of the cumulative test require that the information be labor relations information? And do the duties of a Human Resource Assistant and a Personnel Assistant meet that criterion?
B. Secondary Issues. Whether the Court of Appeals departed from G.R. No. 110399 in defining a bargaining unit that includes employees engaged in "live" chicken operations alongside those in "dressed" chicken processing, or whether the community or mutuality of interests test makes them one unit.
C. Ancillary/Incidental Issues. Whether the petition is a "rehash" or "resurrection" of the issues settled in G.R. No. 110399, given that certification proceedings are quasi-judicial and attain finality; and whether SMFI, as employer, had standing to contest the election at all under the bystander rule.
Ruling
Main Issue: NO as to the Payroll Master; YES as to the Human Resource Assistant and Personnel Assistant. "[S]uch fact does not apply to the position of Payroll Master and the whole gamut of employees who, as perceived by petitioner, has access to salary and compensation data"; the position "does not involve dealing with confidential labor relations information in the course of the performance of his functions," and "[s]ince the nature of his work does not pertain to company rules and regulations and confidential labor relations, it follows that he cannot be excluded from the subject bargaining unit." The other two positions "belong to the category of confidential employees" because "in the discharge of their functions, both gain access to vital labor relations information which outrightly disqualifies them from union membership." Secondary Issue: NO departure — "there should be only one bargaining unit for the employees in Cabuyao, San Fernando, and Otis of Magnolia Poultry Products Plant involved in 'dressed' chicken processing and Magnolia Poultry Farms engaged in 'live' chicken operations," since "the specific tasks of each division are actually interrelated and there exists mutuality of interests." Ancillary Issue: YES, a rehash — "[a]pplying the doctrine of res judicata, the issue in the present case pertaining to the coverage of the employees who would constitute the bargaining unit is now a foregone conclusion," and in any event "an employer lacks the personality to dispute" a certification election.
Dispositive portion (verbatim):
"WHEREFORE, the petition is DENIED. The Decision dated April 28, 2000 and Resolution dated November 28, 2000 of the Court of Appeals, in CA-G.R. SP No. 55510, which affirmed with modification the Resolutions dated July 30, 1999 and August 27, 1999 of the Secretary of Labor, are AFFIRMED.SO ORDERED."
Ratio
- The Court opened by denying the questions any novelty: the issues "relating to the inclusion of employees in supervisor levels 3 and 4 and the exempt employees in the proposed bargaining unit,... the application of the 'community or mutuality of interests' test; and the determination of the employees who belong to the category of confidential employees, are not novel," all of them having been settled in G.R. No. 110399.
- On the unit, it began from the definition: an appropriate bargaining unit is "a group of employees of a given employer, comprised of all or less than all of the entire body of employees, which the collective interest of all the employees, consistent with equity to the employer, indicate to be best suited to serve the reciprocal rights and duties of the parties under the collective bargaining provisions of the law."
- It then applied National Association of Free Trade Unions v. Mainit Lumber, where a Sawmill Division and a Logging Division in different towns were held to be one unit. The governing propositions are that "while the existence of a bargaining history is a factor that may be reckoned with..., the same is not decisive or conclusive"; that "[t]he test of grouping is community or mutuality of interest"; and that this is so "because 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."
- The Mainit Lumber reasoning transferred directly: "[t]heir functions mesh with one another. One group needs the other in the same way that the company needs them both. There may be differences as to the nature of their individual assignments, but the distinctions are not enough to warrant the formation of a separate bargaining unit."
- Applying it, the Court held there should be one unit for the dressed and the live operations alike, because "[c]ertain factors, such as specific line of work, working conditions, location of work, mode of compensation, and other relevant conditions do not affect or impede their commonality of interest," and "[a]lthough they seem separate and distinct from each other, the specific tasks of each division are actually interrelated."
- Turning to confidentiality, the Court restated the two-fold test and its cumulative character, adding the rule's purpose: "[t]he exclusion from bargaining units of employees who, in the normal course of their duties, become aware of management policies relating to labor relations is a principal objective sought to be accomplished by the 'confidential employee rule.'"
- It acknowledged the broader dictionary sense of the term — "[a] confidential employee is one entrusted with confidence on delicate, or with the custody, handling or care and protection of the employer's property," and that "[c]onfidential employees, such as accounting personnel, should be excluded from the bargaining unit, as their access to confidential information may become the source of undue advantage" — and then refused to let that sense govern: "such fact does not apply to the position of Payroll Master and the whole gamut of employees who, as perceived by petitioner, has access to salary and compensation data."
- The Payroll Master therefore stayed in, on the ground that the position "does not involve dealing with confidential labor relations information in the course of the performance of his functions."
- The Court located the source of the exclusion candidly in implication rather than text: "although Article 245 of the Labor Code limits the ineligibility to join, form and assist any labor organization to managerial employees, jurisprudence has extended this prohibition to confidential employees or those who by reason of their positions or nature of work are required to assist or act in a fiduciary manner to managerial employees and, hence, are likewise privy to sensitive and highly confidential records."
- Its rationale runs in both directions. If confidential employees affiliate, "the latter might not be assured of their loyalty in view of evident conflict of interests and the union can also become company-denominated with the presence of managerial employees in the union membership"; and "[h]aving access to confidential information, confidential employees may also become the source of undue advantage. Said employees may act as a spy or spies of either party to a collective bargaining agreement."
- Measured against the actual job descriptions, the Human Resource Assistant's work "necessarily involves labor relations, recruitment and selection of employees, access to employees' personal files and compensation package, and human resource management," while the Personnel Assistant's includes "the recording of minutes for management during collective bargaining negotiations, assistance to management during grievance meetings and administrative investigations, and securing legal advice for labor issues from the petitioner's team of lawyers, and implementation of company programs" — so "both gain access to vital labor relations information which outrightly disqualifies them from union membership."
- On finality, "[t]he proceedings for certification election are quasi-judicial in nature and, therefore, decisions rendered in such proceedings can attain finality," so that res judicata makes the coverage question "a foregone conclusion."
- The Court closed on standing, and on the policy behind it: "a certification election is the sole concern of the workers; hence, an employer lacks the personality to dispute the same"; "[l]aw and policy demand that employers take a strict, hands-off stance in certification elections"; and "[a] labor bargaining representative, to be effective, must owe its loyalty to the employees alone and to no other." The only exception is where the employer must itself petition under Article 258 "because of a request to bargain collectively." With that, the Court "writes finis to the issues raised so as to forestall future suits of similar nature."
Doctrine
B. Doctrines/Rules/Principles. Confidential employees are "those who (1) assist or act in a confidential capacity, in regard (2) to persons who formulate, determine, and effectuate management policies in the field of labor relations," and "[t]he two criteria are cumulative, and both must be met." Access to salary and compensation data is not access to labor relations information; a position whose work "does not pertain to company rules and regulations and confidential labor relations" cannot be excluded. A Human Resource Assistant and a Personnel Assistant, whose duties include CBA negotiations, grievance meetings, administrative investigations and legal advice on labor issues, "gain access to vital labor relations information which outrightly disqualifies them from union membership." Article 245 reaches only managerial employees; "jurisprudence has extended this prohibition to confidential employees," the rationale being both the union's assurance of loyalty and the risk that such employees "may act as a spy or spies of either party." An appropriate bargaining unit is the grouping "best suited to serve the reciprocal rights and duties of the parties," and "[t]he test of grouping is community or mutuality of interest"; bargaining history "is not decisive or conclusive." Certification proceedings "are quasi-judicial in nature and, therefore, decisions rendered in such proceedings can attain finality." An employer "lacks the personality to dispute" a certification election, save where it petitions under Article 258 after being requested to bargain.
C. Distinctions/Limitations/Qualifications. The confidential-employee holding is position-specific, not category-specific — the Court did not exempt payroll work as a class but read the actual job description and found no labor relations content in it. By the same method, an HR or personnel title is not automatically disqualifying either; what disqualified these two was the recorded content of their duties, quoted at length in the footnotes. The Court's own remark that "[c]onfidential employees, such as accounting personnel, should be excluded" must be read with that caution: it describes Golden Farms, where the accounting personnel's information was labor-related, not a rule that accountants are always out. On the unit, the ruling turns on interrelatedness in fact; a division genuinely severed from the rest — different employer, different bargaining history, no operational mesh — would still be its own unit, and the four individuals excluded below show it, two of them being employees of a different corporation. The res judicata holding is likewise confined to issues actually settled in G.R. No. 110399; a genuinely new eligibility question arising after that judgment would not be foreclosed, though it would have to be raised in the inclusion-exclusion proceedings rather than as an election-day objection.
D. Topic/Subtopic Integration (Mandatory). Classified DIRECT. This is the confidential-employee rule at its most concrete: three job descriptions, one included and two excluded, decided by asking of each whether the information reached is labor relations information. Read as the third member of a set with San Miguel Corp. Supervisors and Exempt Employees Union v. Laguesma (item 5), which announces the cumulative criteria, and Sugbuanon (item 6), which shows an employer failing the second criterion entirely. Against Filoil (item 7) it marks the distance travelled: in 1972 confidential employees could be placed inside a supervisors' unit by identity of interest, while by 2011 the question is whether they may be in any unit at all. The case also carries two doctrines the syllabus assigns elsewhere in Week 5 — the community or mutuality of interests test of item 5.c, argued here in the same terms as San Miguel Corporation v. Laguesma, and the employer as a mere bystander rule of item 8, for which this decision is the crispest statement in the list.
Separate Opinions
None. The Decision, penned by Justice Peralta, was concurred in by Justices Carpio (designated an additional member per Special Order No. 1056a), Velasco, Jr., Abad, and Sereno (designated an additional member per Special Order No. 1028), with Justice Velasco, Jr. attesting as Third Division Chairperson and Chief Justice Corona certifying under Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution.