Social Security System Employees Association (SSSEA) vs. Court of Appeals

175 SCRA 686, G.R. No. 85279 July 28, 1989

FACTS: In 1987, the officers and members of Social Security System Employees Association (SSSEA) staged a strike and barricaded the entrances to the SSS Building, preventing non-striking employees from reporting for work and SSS members from transacting business with the SSS. The strike was reported to the Public Sector Labor – Management Council, which ordered the strikers to return to work but the strikers refused to return to work. As a result of the strike, SSS suffered damages.

ISSUES: 1. Do the employees of the Social Security System (SSS) have the right to strike? – NO

2. Does the Regional Trial Court have jurisdiction to hear the case initiated by the SSS and to enjoin the strikers from continuing with the strike and to order them to return to work? – YES

RULING:

Right to Self-Organization; The rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations and peaceful concerted activities including the right to strike in accordance with law is guaranteed.

Right to strike; – While there is no question employees to organize, it is silent as to whether such recognition also includes the right to strike.

– Framers of the organic law intended to limit the right to the formation of unions or associations only without including the right to strike.

– Strikes by employees of the government exercising propriety functions recognized under the Industrial Peace Act. No similar provision is found in the Labor Code.

– At present, in the absence of any legislation allowing government employees to strike, recognizing their right to do so, or regulating the exercise of the right, they are prohibited from striking by express provision of Memorandum Circular No. 6 and as implied in E.O. No. 180.

–  Employees of the SSS are part of the civil service and are covered by the Civil Service Commission’s Memorandum prohibiting strikes. This being the case, the strike staged by the employees of the SSS was illegal.

What is the rationale for distinguishing between workers in the private sector and government employees with regard to the right to strike?—The general rule in the past and up to the present is that “the terms and conditions of employment in the Government, including any political subdivision or instrumentality thereof are governed by law” (Section 11, the Industrial Peace Act, R.A. No. 875, as amended and Article 277, the Labor Code, P.D. No. 442, as amended). Since the terms and conditions of government employment are fixed by law, government workers cannot use the same weapons employed by workers in the private sector to secure concessions from their employers. The principle behind labor unionism in private industry is that industrial peace cannot be secured through compulsion by law. Relations between private employers and their employees rest on an essentially voluntary basis. Subject to the minimum requirements of wage laws and other labor and welfare legislation, the terms and conditions of employment in the unionized private sector are settled through the process of collective bargaining. In government employment, however, it is the legislature and, where properly given delegated power, the administrative heads of government which fix the terms and conditions of employment. And this is effected through statutes or administrative circulars, rules, and regulations, not through collective bargaining agreements.

– The terms and conditions of employment in the government including any political subdivision or instrumentality thereof and government-owned and controlled corporations with original charters are governed by law and employees therein shall not strike for the purpose of securing changes thereof.

Jurisdiction; – The Labor Code itself provides that terms and conditions of employment of government employees shall be governed by the Civil Service Law, rules and regulations; NLRC clearly has no jurisdiction over the dispute at bar.

Regional Trial Court is not precluded from assuming jurisdiction over the SSS’s complaint for damages and issuing the injunctive writ prayed for.