NMCW Elevates Case to SC
Nagkakaisang Manggagawa ng Chong Won (United Workers at Chong Won or NMCW) the union in Chong Won Fashions Inc. which closed shop in March 2007 filed a petition for review of certiorari before a Supreme Court (SC) in May 14, 2012 after their motion for reconsideration before the Court Appeals (CA) was dismissed late of March this year.
The six-year old case against the strikers of NMCW started in 2006 after the management of Chong Won filed an illegal strike case before the National Labor Relations Commission Regional Arbitration Branch (NLRC RAB) IV-A on the grounds that the strikers performed illegal acts of blocking workers to enter the production plant and injuring security guards. Thus, in April 2007, Labor Arbiter Enrico Angelo Portillo decided in favor of the management likewise, dismissing all union members and officers of NMCW.
However, NMCW, maintained through the years that they did neither prevented workers to go inside nor outside the production plant while they were on strike, instead, they talked and convinced the workers to support their strike and refrain from being used as scabs which is illegal under existing laws. Likewise, the strikers also insisted that the security guards initiated and provoked the strikers by dispersing their picket line and started hitting workers with their truncheons and that the strikers only defended their lives. According to NMCW, it was the police and security guards who did illegal acts as they escort scabs inside the production plant.
NMCW then, filed an appeal to the national office of NLRC in Quezon City in 2007 but the commission concurred and modified the decision of Labor Arbiter Portillo in 2008 stating that NMCW was illegal and only the union officers should be dismissed.
NMCW did not lose hope and went on to appeal their case before the (CA) in 2008 but the appellate court also gave its nod in August 2011 to NLRC's earlier decision. NMCW again filed their appeal before the CA and was again which prompted them to file their case to the SC.
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