Flight Attendants and Stewards Association v PAL 22 July 2008 | Ynares-Santiago PAL adopted a retrenchment scheme, Plan 14,

whereby PALs fleet of aircraft will be reduced from 54 to 14, thus requiring only the services of fewer cabin crew members. There was a mass dismissal of employees. About 5 months after, Pal began recalling the services of some who have previously been retrenched. PAL also proposed a stand-alone rehabilitation plan for which it undertook to recover on its own. SEC approved this plan. Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of PAL (FASAP) is the duly certified bargaining agent of PAL flight attendants and stewards. It filed a complaint against PAL for ULP and illegal retrenchment. The SC recognized the right of every business entity to reduce its work force if the same is made necessary by compelling economic factors which would endanger its existence or stability. Nevertheless, there must be faithful compliance with the substantive and procedural requirements of the law. Simply declaring its state of insolvency or its impending doom will not be sufficient. To do so would render the security of tenure of workers and employees illusory. PAL implemented its retrenchment program in an arbitrary manner and with evident bad faith, which prejudiced tenurial rights of cabin crew personnel. Anent the claim of ULP committed against FASAP, SC found the same to be without basis. Article 261 of the Labor Code provides that violations of a CBA, except those which are gross in character, shall no longer be treated as ULP and shall be resolved as grievances under the parties CBA. Moreover, "gross violations of CBA" under the same Article referred to flagrant and/or malicious refusal to comply with the economic provisions of such agreement, which is not the issue in the instant case. Also, SC failed to see any specific instance of union busting, oppression or harassment and similar acts of FASAPs officers. The fact that majority of FASAPs officers were either retrenched or demoted does not prove restraint or coercion in their right to organize. Instead, it is a simple retrenchment scheme gone wrong for failure to abide by the stringent rules prescribed by law, and a failure to discharge the employers burden of proof in such cases.