Appellate court upholds PLDT on danger exposure allowance issue

MANILA, Philippines – The Court of Appeals has upheld the refusal of the management of telecommunications leader Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) to grant danger exposure allowance (DEA) to its supervisors.

According to the appellate court, the benefit is only available to rank-and-file employees of the telecom firm.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Mario Guarina III, the CA affirmed earlier findings that the Gabayang Union sa Telekomunikasyon ng mga Superbisor’s claim of entitlement to the DEA is without merit.

According to Guarina, it cannot be said that the decision of the panel of arbitrators denying GUTS’s claim to DEA is bereft of substantiation. “In view of the foregoing, the decision subject of review is affirmed,” he said.

In December 2007, GUTS filed before the CA a petition for review of a decision which ruled that PLDT is not obliged to grant the said allowance to its supervisors. The decision also stated that GUTS failed to prove the danger exposure of each party and every position occupied by its members.

GUTS said its members were exposed to danger before they were promoted as supervisors, giving them the right to DEA.

PLDT management, on the other hand, said the benefit is not provided by any contract or law as this was only granted to specific rank-and-file employees as a concession in an interest dispute with the union of the rank-and-file.

But the court ruled that since the allowance was granted to specific positions, an employee occupying any of these positions is no longer entitled to the DEA when he gets promoted to a different position.

The entitlement to the DEA was the subject of a dispute between the management and its rank-and-file employees in the 1980s, resulting to assumption of jurisdiction of the then Ministry of Labor and Employment.

The MOLE settled the issue in 1982 by fixing the amount of the allowance. In the conciliation conferences that followed, PLDT manifested its willingness to pay the DEA to 2,236 employees categorized as repairmen, installers, linemen, among others. The union, however, sought to have the DEA extended to other categories of personnel exposed to proportionate, if not equal, hazards. –Mary Ann LL. Reyes (The Philippine Star)