This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2006-06-21 |
GARCIA, J. |
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| distinction between union officers and members/ordinary workers. An ordinary striking worker or union member cannot, as a rule, be terminated for mere participation in an illegal strike; there must be proof that he committed illegal acts during the strike.[22] And lest it be forgotten, the law invests the Secretary of Labor and Employment the prerogative of tempering the consequence of the defiance to the assumption order. The Secretary may thus merely suspend rather than dismiss the employee involved.[23] This is as it should be. For as then Associate, now Chief, Justice Artemio V. Panganiban prefaced his ponencia in Solvic Industrial Corporation vs. NLRC[24] - Except for the most serious causes affecting the business of the employer, our labor laws frown upon dismissal. Where a penalty less punitive would suffice, an employee should not be sanctioned with a consequence so severe. With the view we take of this case, the public respondent Secretary of Labor and Employment - and necessarily the CA - acted within the bounds of the law and certainly rendered a judicious solution to the dispute when she spared the striking workers or union members from the | |||||