Workers denied justice through delay.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Neal H. Cruz

IT'S another Labor Day during which workers will again march in the streets and innumerable speakers will extol the virtues of labor with empty platitudes. Militant labor organizations usually ask for pay increases at this time but everybody forgets what is more important than token pay increases: justice for workers.

We have laws to protect workers but there might as well be none because of the delay of the courts in enforcing them. The National Labor Relations Commission was created precisely to resolve labor-management conflicts speedily. But its decisions are appealable to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court and, ironically, that is where the cases are usually delayed.

The standard tactic of management in any labor case is to delay it to starve out the worker so that he would either give up the fight in exasperation or agree to a compromise. That is why arbiters were assigned to the NLRC, to hear the cases summarily and speedily without being hampered by the technicalities attending formal court hearings. But because of excessive workload and management's dilatory tactics the case still takes as long as those being tried in a regular trial court.

The arbiter's decision, if favorable to the workers, is appealed by management to the NLRC divisions, and from the division to the en banc. From there, management can take the case to the Court of Appeals and still further to the Supreme Court. And here the case can remain frozen for years as the magistrates concentrate on more important cases and the small workers are forgotten, exactly as management intended. Isn't it ironic that justice is denied to workers through delay in our highest courts?

Perhaps realizing this, the Supreme Court has limited appeals in labor cases to the Court of Appeals, but some cases are still appealable to it on a question of law. And while theoretically the tribunal sets a deadline for lower courts to decide cases (which are often violated on technicalities) it does not do the same for itself. It can take its own sweet time and even ignore pleas by workers for the speedy resolution of their cases.