Employers Have Equal Rights: The Law Protects Workers Without Oppressing Employers

“In protecting the rights of the workers, the law, however, does not authorize the oppression or self-destruction of employer. The constitutional commitment to the policy of social justice cannot be understood to mean that every labor dispute shall automatically be decided in favor of labor. The constitutional and legal protection equally recognize the employer’s right and prerogative to manage its operation according to reasonable standards and norms of fair play.”¹

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After due consideration, we find the NLRC legally correct and well within its jurisdiction when it affirmed the validity of the respondents’ dismissal on the ground of serious misconduct.

Sexual acts and intimacies between two consenting adults belong, as a principled ideal, to the realm of purely private relations.1âwphi1 Whether aroused by lust or inflamed by sincere affection, sexual acts should be carried out at such place, time and circumstance that, by the generally accepted norms of conduct, will not offend public decency nor disturb the generally held or accepted social morals. Under these parameters, sexual acts between two consenting adults do not have a place in the work environment.

Indisputably, the respondents engaged in sexual intercourse inside company premisesand during work hours. These circumstances, by themselves, are already punishablemisconduct. 

All told, the respondents’ misconduct,under the circumstances of this case, fell within the terms of Article 282 (now Article 296) of the Labor Code. Consequently, we reverse the CA’s decision for its failure to recognize that no grave abuse of discretion attended the NLRC’s decision to support the respondents’ dismissal for serious misconduct.

Footnotes

 ¹Imasen Philippine Manufacturing Corporation vs. Ramonchito T. Alcon and Joann S. Papa citing Mercury Drug Corporation v. NLRC, G.R. No. 75662, September 15, 1989