UP v. Dir. of BLR

Facts:

The Organization of Non-Academic Personnel of UP (ONAPUP) claims to have a membership of 3,236 members — comprising more than 33% of the 9,617 persons constituting the non-academic personnel of UP-Diliman, Los Baños, Manila, and Visayas.

ONAPUP sought the holding of a certification election among all said non-academic employees of UP in BLR. At a conference in the Bureau, the University stated that it had no objection to the election. Another registered labor union, All UP Workers' Union, filed a comment, as intervenor in the certification election proceeding. The University, through its General Counsel, made of record its view that there should be two 2 unions: one for academic, the other for non-academic or administrative, personnel considering the dichotomy of interests, conditions and rules governing these employee groups. Director Calleja declared that "the appropriate organizational unit… should embrace all the regular rank-and-file employees, teaching and non-teaching, of the University of the Philippines, including all its branches" and that there was no sufficient evidence "to justify the grouping of the non-academic or administrative personnel into an organization unit apart and distinct from that of the academic or teaching personnel." The Director thus commanded that a certification election be "conducted among rank-and-file employees, teaching and non-teaching" in all four autonomous campuses of the UP, and that management appear and bring copies of the corresponding payrolls for January, June, and July, 1990 at the "usual pre-election conference…" The University filed a Manifestation seeking the exclusion from the organizational unit of those employees holding supervisory positions among non-academic personnel, and those in teaching staff with the rank of Assistant Professor or higher. The ONAPUP made of record its position; that it was not opposing the University's preferred classification of rank-and file employees. On the other hand, the "All UP Workers' Union" opposed the University's view. Director Calleja promulgated an Order resolving the "sole issue" of "whether or not professors, associate professors and assistant professors are included in the definition of high-level employee(s)" in light of Rule I, Section 1 of the Implementing Guidelines of Executive Order No. 180. The University moved a motion for reconsideration but was denied.

Issues:

Should we consider professors, associate professors and assistant professors as "high-level employees" "whose functions are normally considered policy determining, managerial or… highly confidential in nature” and can  they, and other employees performing academic functions, should comprise a collective bargaining unit distinct and different from that consisting of the non-academic employees of the University, considering the dichotomy of interests, conditions and rules existing between them.

Held:

The Academic Personnel Committees, through which the professors supposedly exercise managerial functions, were constituted "in order to foster greater involvement of the faculty and other academic personnel in appointments, promotions, and other personnel matters that directly affect them." Personnel actions affecting the faculty and other academic personnel should, however, "be considered under uniform guidelines and consistent with the Resolution of the Board (of Regents) adopted during its 789th Meeting (11-26-69) creating the University Academic Personnel Board."

The power or prerogative pertaining to a high-level employee "to effectively recommend such managerial actions, to formulate or execute management policies or decisions and/or to hire, transfer, suspend, lay-off, recall, dismiss, assign, or discipline employees" is exercised to a certain degree by the university academic personnel board/committees and ultimately by the Board of Regents.

The policy-determining functions of the University Council refer to academic matters, i.e. those governing the relationship between the University and its students, and not the University as an employer and the professors as employees. It is thus evident that no conflict of interest results in the professors being members of the University Council and being classified as rank-and-file employees.

The Court explained that "(t)he test of the grouping is community or mutuality of interests. And 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' (Rothenberg on Labor Relations, 490)." Hence, in that case, the Court upheld the trial court's conclusion that two separate bargaining units should be formed, one consisting of regular and permanent employees and another consisting of casual laborers or stevedores.