Security Bank Employees Union v. Security Bank and Trust Co.

Security Bank Employees Union v. Security Bank and Trust Co.

The union despite various TRO’s and return to work orders by the court, still held their strike.  The union contends that the lower court judge committed grave abuse of discretion when he issued ex parte a restraining order prohibiting the workers from staging or continuing a strike or picketing "of whatever kind or form, particularly, at plaintiff's main office at Escolta, Manila," as well as any of its branches.

It is true that respondent Bank is in the unenviable position of an innocent bystander caught in the cross-fire. It enlists one's sympathy, but it cannot with reason assert that its difficulties are in no way connected with a labor controversy. Besides, it is now too late to consider as lacking the elements of a labor dispute a situation where rival unions vie for supremacy. This court has so indicated in at least two decisions, Balaquezon Trans. Labor Union v. Muñoz-Palma and Malayang Manggagawa sa Esso v. Esso Standard Eastern.

Even if it be granted, however, that the ordinary procedure provided by the Rules of Court could be relied upon, the last mentioned order of respondent Judge dated January 3, 1968, which modified what was issued by him on November 2, 1967 enjoining "the defendants or their representatives from picketing of whatever kind or form", still could not survive the jurisdictional test. It suffers from the fatal defect of prohibiting any picketing of whatever kind or form."

This cannot be done consistently with the Industrial Peace Act, which categorically provides that no Court, Commission or Board of the Philippines "shall have jurisdiction except as provided in section ten of this Act to issue any restraining order, temporary or permanent injunction in any case involving or growing out of a labor dispute to prohibit any person or persons participating or interested in such dispute from doing whether singly or in concert, any of the following acts:  (5) Giving publicity to the existence of, or the facts involved in any labor dispute, whether by advertising, speaking, patrolling, or by any method not involving fraud or violence;”.

Moreover, this Court, in Caltex Refinery Association v. Lucero, made explicit its disapproval of an injunction against strikes, holding that "no Court can issue a restraining order against union members who plan to hold a strike even if the same may appear to be illegal." That is so in view of the unmistakable language employed in the Industrial Peace Act, with reference to strikes.

The statutory command on picketing likewise calls for a similar declaration. The obstacle that bars the Bank from attaining its objective to bar all picketing is indeed too formidable to surmount.

Also, even without such a categorical mandate expressed in the Act, the recognition of peaceful picketing as a constitutional right embraced in the freedom of expression dating from the 1947 decision of Mortera v. Court of Industrial Relations,  precludes the issuance of such a blanket prohibition as that imposed in the challenged order of respondent Judge of January 3, 1968.

This is not to say that picketing, like freedom of expression in general, has no limits. Certainly, to the extent that it is an instrument of coercion rather than of persuasion, it cannot rightfully be entitled to the protection associated with free speech.

Equally so, there can be no indiscriminate ban on the freedom to disseminate the facts of a labor dispute and to appeal for public sympathy, which is the aim of peaceful picketing, without a transgression of the Constitution, sufficient to oust a court of jurisdiction, even on the assumption that it was originally possessed of such a competence, which was not so in this case as had been earlier made clear.