Joseph Peter Calleja
Anna (not her real name) came to me for legal advice. After working for 27 years at her company, she received news that she couldn’t work anymore due to circumstances brought about by the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Her company is closing 13 outlets in Manila and filing for bankruptcy.
Anna, told me her company had asked her to sign a voluntary resignation letter for her to receive her salary for the whole year. She signed it because she needed money to buy smartphones and a laptop for the online schooling of her three children.
She did not know the legal consequences of voluntary resignation. She only knew she needed money for her children.
Anna asked if what she was asked to do was legal. “Many companies are closing due to poor business during this pandemic. Instead of not getting anything, I chose an option with assured cash. I needed the money for my children, especially now they are using smartphones and computers for school,” she told me.
I immediately knew something was wrong in the way Anna’s termination was handled. The reason cited was poor business caused by the pandemic. Yet the grounds used for termination by her employer were unjust and unfair.
The Labour Code of the Philippines provides that an employer may terminate an employee for two reasons—just and authorised causes.
Just cause includes serious misconduct or willful disobedience; gross and habitual neglect by an employee; fraud or willful breach of trust; criminal activity or other similar activities.
Authorised causes, on the other hand, include redundancy, retrenchment (reduction of costs) to prevent losses or the closing or cessation of operation of a business.
Clearly, the company had been experiencing business losses, so either it was forced to retrench employees or closing because it couldn’t take any more losses. Thus, Anna’s termination was due to authorised causes.
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The question was—why was Anna asked to sign a voluntary resignation letter?
Philippine law says an employee who voluntarily resigns from work is not entitled to severance pay. The law only grants this to those who are dismissed through no fault of their own but for reasons outside of their control such as retrenchment and the closing or cessation of business operations.
The Supreme Court once ruled that “resignation is the voluntary act of an employee who is in a situation where one believes that personal reasons cannot be sacrificed in favour of the exigency of the service, and one has no other choice but to dissociate oneself from employment.”
In short, Anna’s voluntary resignation absolved the company from paying her severance which must be computed based on her number of years in the company. She merely received her salary for the entire year but not a single cent to compensate her for 27 years in the company.
Anna’s case is just one among many where corporations take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to escape their legal obligations to their employees. The pandemic has brought economic difficulties and with them labour issues due to attempts by companies to circumvent the law by not providing their employees with what they are entitled to.
On September 8, Luis Cardinal Tagle, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, said it was “saddening” that for some, business interests prevail over human lives during the pandemic.
“As many people are suffering and getting poorer, there are some businesses and probably individuals who are taking advantage of the situation,” he said in an online recollection.
The Cardinal Tagle also said this mentality “adds to the suffering and deaths” of many Filipinos who were already struggling due to loss of jobs and lack of income.
The Catholic Church this month commemorates the 39th year since the publication of Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical on labour and the dignity of human work, Laborem Exercens (Through Work).
St. John Paul II said labour takes precedence in any economic activity. People are always more important than any material thing such as money or capitalism.
“We must first of all recall a principle that has always been taught by the Church: the principle of the priority of labour over capital. This principle directly concerns the process of production: in this process labour is always a primary efficient cause, while capital, the whole collection of means of production, remains a mere instrument or instrumental cause,” St. John Paul II wrote.
“This consistent image, in which the principle of the primacy of person over things is strictly preserved, was broken up in human thought, sometimes after a long period of incubation in practical living. The break occurred in such a way that labour was separated from capital and set in opposition to it and capital was set in opposition to labour, as though they were two impersonal forces, two production factors juxtaposed in the same ‘economistic’ perspective.”
Pope St. John Paul II reminded Catholics that labour has a spiritual dimension. Christians must always see the dignity of the human person and Jesus’ humanity in the labour sector, not in the material fruits or money capitalism brings to man.
“Work is following in the footsteps of Jesus, a carpenter, and the Apostle Paul, a tentmaker … By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us man, in a way, collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity,” the late pope added.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
