Benguet Consolidated v. BCI Ees Union

 Benguet Consolidated v. BCI Ees Union

G.R. No. L-24711

April 30, 1968

DOCTRINE: The Substitutionary Doctrine provides that the employees cannot revoke the validly executed collective bargaining contract with their employer by the simple expedient of changing their bargaining agent. The new agent must respect the contract. The employees, thru their new bargaining agent, cannot renege on the collective bargaining contract, except to negotiate with management for the shortening thereof. This doctrine however cannot be invoked to support the claim that a newly certified CBA assumes all personal undertakings, such as the no-strike stipulation in this case, assumed by the deposed union.

FACTS: 

Benguet-Balatoc Workers Union (BBWU) entered into a collective bargaining contract with Benguet Consolidated, Inc., (BENGUET). Said contract became effective for a period of 4-1/2 years. It likewise embodied a No-Strike, No-Lockout clause. About 3 years later, a certification election was conducted by the DOLE among the rank and file employees of BENGUET in the same collective bargaining units. UNION won and defeated BBWU so it was certified as the SOLE bargaining agent of BENGUET employees. Subsequently, the UNION members approved a resolution for a notice of strike against BENGUET.  The latter had to incur expenses for the damages done because of the strike so it sued UNION, PAFLU and their respective Presidents to recover expenses and that defendants breached their undertaking in the existing CONTRACT not to strike during the effectivity thereof invoking the doctrine of substitution.

ISSUE: 

Whether or not the petitioner correctly relied upon the Substitution Doctrine.

HELD: 

No. The substitutionary doctrine only provides that the employees cannot revoke the validly executed collective bargaining contract with their employer by the simple expedient of changing their bargaining agent. And it is in the light of this that the phrase “said new agent would have to respect said contract” must be understood. It only means that the employees, thru their new bargaining agent, cannot renege on their collective bargaining contract, except of course to negotiate with management for the shortening thereof.

 

The ”substitutionary” doctrine, therefore, cannot be invoked to support the contention that a newly certified collective bargaining agent automatically assumes all the personal undertakings – like the no-strike stipulation here – in the CBA made by the deposed union. When BBWU bound itself and its officers not to strike, it could not have validly bound also all other rival unions existing in the bargaining units in question. BBWU was the agent of the employees, not of the other unions which possess distinct personalities. To consider UNION contractually bound to the no-strike stipulation would therefore violate the legal maxim that res inter alios acta alios nec prodest nec nocet. (a contract cannot adversely affect the rights of one who is not a party to the contract.)