3. By Labor Organizations

Who can Commit ULP

Both employers and labor organizations can commit acts of unfair labor practices in collective bargaining. However, the labor organization must be the representative of the employees before any act it does may be considered as a violation of the duty to bargain collectively. (Labor Code, Arts. 259[g] and 260[c])

Who are Liable when ULP is committed by Entities Other than Natural Persons

If the ULP is committed by a labor organization, the parties liable are the officers, members of governing boards, representatives or agents or members of labor associations or organizations who have actually participated in, authorized or ratified such acts. [Art 260].

If ULP is committed by the employer corporation, partnership, association, its officers or agents who have actually participated in, authorized or ratified ULP shall be held criminally liable. [Art. 259]

ACTS CONSTITUTING ULP BY ORGANIZATION

Kinds of ULP by Labor Organizations (Labor code, Art. 260)

• To restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their right to self – organization.
• To attempt to or cause an employer to discriminate against an employee to whom membership in the labor organization was denied or to terminate an employee on any ground other than the usual terms and conditions under which membership or continuation of membership is made available to other members.
• To refuse to bargain collectively with the employer, if it is the representative of the employee.
• To attempt to or cause the employer to pay money or other things of value, in the nature of an exaction, for services which are not performed or not to be performed. This includes fees for union negotiations.
• To ask or accept negotiations or attorney’s fees from employers as part of the settlement in any dispute.
• Gross violation of a CBA's economic provisions; other CBA violations are not treated as ULP and are resolved through the grievance machinery and voluntary arbitration (Labor Code, Arts. 260(f) [249(f)] and 274 [261]).

FIRST ULP: RESTRAINT OR COERCION BY LABOR ORGANIZATION; INTERFERENCE BY UNION IS NOT ULP (ART. 260 [A])

A labor organization commits ULP when it restrains or coerces employees in their right to self – organization. It may interfere in the employees’ right to self-organization as long as the interference does not amount to restraint or coercion.

Union cannot coerce employees to join a strike

Similarly, a violation is committed when a union threatens the employees with bodily harm in order to force them to strike.

A union violates the law when, in order to restrain or coerce non-strikers from working during the strike, it:

• Assaults or threatens to assault them
• Threatens them with the loss of their jobs
• Blocks their ingress to and egress from the plant
• Damages non-strikers’ automobiles or forces them off the highway
• Physically preventing them from working
• Sabotages the employer’s property in their presence, thereby creating an atmosphere of fear or violence
• Demonstrates loudly in front of a nonstrikers’ residence with signs and shouts accusing the non-striker of “scabbing”
• Holding the non-striker up to ridicule
• Seeking public condemnation of the nonstriker

Note: Interference, which is ULP with employers, is not ULP when done by a labor organization because it is part and parcel of the duties and functions of a labor organization.

Three (3) Kinds of Discrimination that the Union may commit under Art. 260(b)

• Act of the union to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee, in general, irrespective of whether he/she is a member or non-member of the union
• Discriminatory act of the union against an employee “with respect to whom membership in such organization has been denied.”
• Discriminatory act of the union against an employee whose membership therein has been terminated based “on any ground other than usual terms and conditions under which membership or continuation of membership is made available to other members.”

Requisites for featherbedding:

• Labor organization, its officers, agents or representatives have caused or attempted to cause an employer either:
• To pay, or agree to pay any money, including the demand for fee for union negotiations
• To deliver or agree to deliver any things of value
• Such demand for payment of money or delivery of things of value is in the nature of an exaction

The services contemplated in exchange for the exaction are not actually performed or will not be performed (Labor code, Art. 260 (d)).