Section 255 (245) of the Labor Code recognizes three categories of employees, namely: managerial, supervisory, and rank-and-file.
(a) Give the characteristics of each category of employees, and state whether the employees in each category may organize and form unions. Explain your answer. (5%)
(b) May confidential employees who assist managerial employees, and who act in a confidential capacity or have access to confidential matters being handled by persons exercising managerial functions in the field of labor relations form, or assist, or join labor unions? Explain your answer. (2.5%)
Suggested Answer:
(a) 1) Managerial employees
Managerial employees are those who are vested with the powers or prerogatives to lay down and execute management policies and/or to hire, transfer, suspend, lay-off, recall, discharge, assign or discipline employees.
Managerial employees are not eligible to join, assist or form any labor organization.
2) Supervisory employees
Supervisory employees are those who, in the interest of the employer, effectively recommend
such managerial actions if the exercise of such authority is not merely routinary or clerical in nature but requires the use of independent judgment.
Supervisory employees shall not be eligible for membership in the collective bargaining unit of the rank-and-file employees but may join, assist or form separate collective bargaining units and/or legitimate labor organizations of their own.
3) Rank-and-file employees
All employees who not managerial employees no supervisory employees are considered rank-and-file employees.
The rank-and-file employees are eligible to join, assist or form any labor organization.
The rank-and-file union and the supervisors’ union operating within the same establishment may join the same federation or national union.
(b) No. Under the doctrine of necessary implication, the disqualification of managerial employees equally applies to confidential employees. The exclusion from bargaining units of employees who, in the normal course of their duties, become aware of management policies relating to labor relations is a principal objective sought to be accomplished by the “confidential employee rule.”
