Labor Standards Outline

Maternity Children’s Hospital vs. Secretary of Labor G.R. No. 78909 June 30, 1989 EN BANC: MEDIALDEA, J.: Facts: Petitioner is a semi-government hospital, managed by the Board of Directors of the Cagayan de Oro Women's Club and Puericulture Center, headed by Mrs. Antera Dorado, as holdover President. The hospital derives its finances from the club itself as well as from paying patients, averaging 130 per month. It is also partly subsidized by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Cagayan De Oro City government. Petitioner has forty-one (41) employees. Aside from salary and living allowances, the employees are given food, but the amount spent therefor is deducted from their respective salaries On May 23, 1986, ten (10) employees of the petitioner employed in different capacities/positions filed a complaint with the Office of the Regional Director of Labor and Employment, Region X, for underpayment of their salaries and ECOLAS, which was docketed as ROX Case No. CW- 71-86. On June 16, 1986, the Regional Director directed two of his Labor Standard and Welfare Officers to inspect the records of the petitioner to ascertain the truth of the allegations in the complaints. Based on their inspection report and recommendation, the Regional Director issued an Order dated August 4, 1986, directing the payment of P723,888.58, representing underpayment of wages and ECOLAs to all the petitioner's employees. Petitioner appealed from this Order to the Minister of Labor and Employment, Hon. Augusto S. Sanchez, who rendered a Decision on September 24, 1986, modifying the said Order in that deficiency wages and ECOLAs should be computed only from May 23, 1983 to May 23, 1986, On October 24, 1986, the petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration which was denied by the Secretary of Labor in his Order dated May 13, 1987, for lack of merit. Issue: Whether or not the Regional Director had jurisdiction over the case and if so, the extent of coverage of any award that should be forthcoming, arising from his visitorial and enforcement powers under Article 128 of the Labor Code. Held: This is a labor standards case, and is governed by Art. 128-b of the Labor Code, as amended by E.O. No. 111. Under the present rules, a Regional Director exercises both visitorial and enforcement power over labor standards cases, and is therefore empowered to adjudicate money claims, provided there still exists an employer-employee relationship, and the findings of the regional office is not contested by the employer concerned. 1 Labor standards refer to the minimum requirements prescribed by existing laws, rules, and regulations relating to wages, hours of work, cost of living allowance and other monetary and welfare benefits, including occupational, safety, and health standards (Section 7, Rule I, Rules on the Disposition of Labor Standards Cases in the Regional Office, dated September 16, 1987). Decision: ACCORDINGLY, this petition should be dismissed, as it is hereby DISMISSED, as regards all persons still employed in the Hospital at the time of the filing of the complaint, but GRANTED as regards those employees no longer employed at that time. SO ORDERED. Fernan, C.J., Narvasa, Gutierrez, Jr., Cruz, Paras, Feliciano, Gancayco, Padilla, Bidin, Cortes, Griño-Aquino and Regalado, JJ., concur 2 Calalang vs. Williams G.R. No. 47800 2 December 1940 FIRST DIVISION, LAUREL (J): 4 CONCUR Facts: A resolution by the National Traffice Commission that animal drawn vehicles be prohibited from passing along Rosario Street extending from Plaza Calderon de la Barca to Dasmariñas Street, from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and along Rizal Avenue extending from the railroad crossing at Antipolo Street to Echague Street, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., for a period of one year from the date of the opening of the Colgante Bridge to traffic was approved and adopted by the Secretary of Public Works and Communications upon indorsement by the Director of Public Works pursuant to Commonwealth Act 548 with modifications that Rosario Street and Rizal Avenue be closed to traffic of animal-drawn vehicles, between the points and during the hours as indicated. The Mayor of Manila and the Acting Chief of Police of Manila have enforced and caused to be enforced the rules and regulations thus adopted. Maximo Calalang, in his capacity as a private citizen and as a taxpayer of Manila, brought before the Supreme Court the petition for a writ of prohibition against A. D. Williams, as Chairman of the National Traffic Commission; Vicente Fragante, as Director of Public Works; Sergio Bayan, as Acting Secretary of Public Works and Communications; Eulogio Rodriguez, as Mayor of the City of Manila; and Juan Dominguez, as Acting Chief of Police of Manila. Issue: Whether the rules and regulations promulgated by the Director of Public Works infringe upon the constitutional precept regarding the promotion of social justice to insure the well-being and economic security of all the people. Held: The promotion of social justice is to be achieved not through a mistaken sympathy towards any given group. Social justice is "neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy," but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the Government of measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the competent elements of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and social equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community, constitutionally, through the adoption of measures legally justifiable, or extra-constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the existence of all governments on the time-honored principle of salus populi est suprema lex. Social justice, therefore, must be founded on the recognition of the necessity of interdependence among divers and diverse units of a society and of the protection that should be equally and evenly extended to all groups as a combined force in our social and economic life, consistent with the fundamental and paramount objective of the state of promoting the 3 health, comfort, and quiet of all persons, and of bringing about "the greatest good to the greatest number." Decision: IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the Writ of Prohibition Prayed for is hereby denied, with costs against the petitioner. So ordered. Avanceña, C.J., Imperial, Diaz and Horrilleno, JJ., concur. 4 People vs. Vera Reyes G.R. No. L-45748 April 5, 1939 EN BANC, IMPERIAL, J.: Facts: The defendant was charged in the Court of First Instance of Manila by the assistant city fiscal with a violation of Act No. 2549, as amended by Acts Nos. 3085 and 3958. The information alleged that from September 9 to October 28, 1936, and for the some time after, the accused, in his capacity as president and general manager of the Consolidated Mines, having engaged the services of Severa Velasco de Vera as stenographer, at an agreed salary of P35 a month willfully and illegally refused to pay the salary of said stenographer corresponding to the above- mentioned period of time, which was long due and payable, in spite of her repeated demands. The accused interposed a demurrer on the ground that the facts alleged in the information do not constitute any offense, and that even if they did, the laws penalizing it are unconstitutional. After the hearing, the court sustained the demurrer, declaring unconstitutional the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549 as last amended by Act No. 3958 for the reason that it violates the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt, and dismissed the case. The last part of Section 1 of Act No. 2549, as last amended by section 1 of Act No. 3958 considers as illegal the refusal of an employer to pay when he can do so, the salaries of his employers or laborers on the 15th or last day of every month or on Saturday of every week, with only two days extension, and the non-payment of the salary within the period specified is considered as a violation of the law. The same act exempts from criminal responsibility the employer who, having failed to pay the salary, should prove satisfactorily that it was impossible to make such payment. The fiscal appealed from said order. In this appeal the Solicitor-General contends that the court erred in declaring Act No. 3958 unconstitutional, and in dismissing the cause. Issue: Whether or not the last part of Sec. 1 of Act No. 2594 as amended by Act No. 3958 is constitutional and valid. Held: We hold that the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549, as last amended by section 1 of Act No. 3958, is valid. We do not believe that this constitutional provision has been correctly applied in this case. A close perusal of the last part of section 1 of Act No. 2549, as amended by section 1 of Act No. 3958, will show that its language refers only to the employer who, being able to make payment, shall abstain or refuse to do so, without justification and to the prejudice of the laborer or employee. An employer so circumstanced is not unlike a person who defrauds another, by refusing to pay his just debt. In both cases the deceit or fraud is the essential element constituting the offense. The first case is a violation of Act No. 3958, and the second is estafa punished by the Revised Penal Code.

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