Sexual Discrimination Against Women in the Workplace

With women empowerment does not necessarily comes protection against sexual discrimination in the playing field of employment. Sexual discrimination against women in the workplace has been making news headlines for years, but the history’'s largest civil rights lawsuit has just been certified that has the potential to change the job environment for all women. While discrimination can target both men and women, the majority of cases involve sexual discrimination against women. It has been a challenge over the years to lessen the pay gap between men and women, to equalize promotions and employment opportunities, and to put a fair playing field in the workplace regardless of gender. Sexual discrimination against women has been fought through the courts and history-altering decisions removing sex-based restrictions on occupations were achieved. Many people continuing to fight against sexual discrimination against women hope that Supreme Court Decisions will bring even more necessary changes to the workplace and force the public as a whole to scrutinize the way our employment system is set up.
LEGISLATION OF THE MAGNA CARTA FOR WOMEN
Congress has recently enacted Republic Act No. 9710 known as “The Magna Carta of Women” (MCW). The new law affirms that women are holders of and claimants to human rights. It clearly places on government shoulders the duty to ensure that the human rights of women are upheld and promoted. The three branches of government at all levels and government-owned and -controlled corporations assume these obligations under the MCW. Womens rights advocates keep abreast and take advantage of positive advances in legal-standard setting in the international arena to support their advocacy and other strategies.
Under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw), governments that have ratified the treaty like the Philippines have the obligation to eliminate discrimination against women and to take steps so that women, regardless of their status, condition or situation, have the opportunity to exercise and enjoy their rights. Consistent with the Cedaw, the MCW requires that government consider the specific risks and particular contexts, especially of women in marginalized sectors or those in situations of conflict, when it adopts women-specific or general programs and measures. The MCW in many respects is a model for adopting the Cedaw norms on equality and non-discrimination in a country’s legislation.
LATEST SUPREME COURT DECISION ON THE RECENT ISSUE
Recent jurisprudence upholding the rights of women against sexual discrimination in the workplace have been promulgated by the Supreme Court. A recent Decision is in the case of PATRICIA HALAGUEÑA and other flight attendants of PHILIPPINE AIRLINES vs.
PHILIPPINE AIRLINES INCORPORATED (G.R. No. 172013, October 2, 2009).
Petitioners were employed as female flight attendants of respondent Philippine Airlines (PAL) on different dates prior to November 22, 1996. They are members of the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (FASAP), a labor organization certified as the sole and exclusive certified as the sole and exclusive bargaining representative of the flight attendants, flight stewards and pursers of respondent. On July 11, 2001, respondent and FASAP entered into a Collective Bargaining Agreement incorporating the terms and conditions of their agreement for the years 2000 to 2005, hereinafter referred to as PAL-FASAP CBA. Section 144, Part A of the PAL-FASAP CBA, provides that for the Cabin Attendants hired before 22 November 1996, compulsory retirement shall be fifty-five (55) for females and sixty (60) for males.
Petitioners and several female cabin crews manifested that the aforementioned CBA provision on compulsory retirement is discriminatory, and demanded for an equal treatment with their male counterparts. The thrust of the Petition is that Sec. 144 of the subject CBA is allegedly discriminatory as it discriminates against female flight attendants, in violation of the Constitution, the Labor Code, and the CEDAW. The case seeks a declaration of the nullity of the questioned provision of the CBA.
However, the Supreme Court declared that the question as to whether said Section 114, Part A of the PAL-FASAP CBA is discriminatory or not is a question of fact. This would require the presentation and reception of evidence by the parties in order for the trial court to ascertain the facts of the case and whether said provision violates the Constitution, statutes and treaties. Since a full-blown trial is necessary, the case was remanded to the RTC for the proper determination of the merits of the petition for declaratory relief is just and proper.
In the meantime, the issue of discrimination was left hanging. The Supreme Court is yet to make a ruling on this matter, should the decision of the RTC be raised up to the Highest Tribunal of the Land to form part of jurisprudence.
AN OLD YET LANDMARK JURISPRUDENCE ON THE ISSUE
A landmark case on discrimination against women in the work field is that of PT & T vs. NLRC, G.R. No. 118978 May 23, 1997. Seeking relief through the extraordinary writ of certiorari, Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Company (hereafter, PT & T) invokes the alleged concealment of civil status and defalcation of company funds as grounds to terminate the services of an employee. That employee, Grace de Guzman, contrarily argues that what really motivated PT & T to terminate her services was her having contracted marriage during her employment, which is prohibited by petitioner in its company policies. She thus claims that she was discriminated against in gross violation of law, such a proscription by an employer being outlawed by Article 136 of the Labor Code.
Grace de Guzman was initially hired by petitioner as a reliever, specifically as a "Supernumerary Project Worker," for a fixed period from November 21, 1990 until April 20, 1991 vice one C.F. Tenorio who went on maternity leave. Under the Reliever Agreement which she signed with petitioner company, her employment was to be immediately terminated upon expiration of the agreed period. Thereafter, from June 10, 1991 to July 1, 1991, and from July 19, 1991 to August 8, 1991, private respondent's services as reliever were again engaged by petitioner, this time in replacement of one Erlinda F. Dizon who went on leave during both periods. After August 8, 1991, and pursuant to their Reliever Agreement, her services were terminated.
On September 2, 1991, private respondent was once more asked to join petitioner company as a probationary employee, the probationary period to cover 150 days. In the job application form that was furnished her to be filled up for the purpose, she indicated in the portion for civil status therein that she was single although she had contracted marriage a few months earlier, that is, on May 26, 1991.
It now appears that private respondent had made the same representation in the two successive reliever agreements which she signed on June 10, 1991 and July 8, 1991. When petitioner supposedly learned about the same later, its branch supervisor in Baguio City, Delia M. Oficial, sent to private respondent a memorandum dated January 15, 1992 requiring her to explain the discrepancy. In that memorandum, she was reminded about the company's policy of not accepting married women for employment.
In her reply letter dated January 17, 1992, private respondent stated that she was not aware of PT&T's policy regarding married women at the time, and that all along she had not deliberately hidden her true civil status. Petitioner nonetheless remained unconvinced by her explanations. Private respondent was dismissed from the company effective January 29, 1992, 6 which she readily contested by initiating a complaint for illegal dismissal, coupled with a claim for non-payment of cost of living allowances (COLA), before the Regional Arbitration Branch of the National Labor Relations Commission in Baguio City.
The Supreme Court had occasion to discuss this issue extensively with the following pronouncements:
“Decreed in the Bible itself is the universal norm that women should be regarded with love and respect but, through the ages, men have responded to that injunction with indifference, on the hubristic conceit that women constitute the inferior sex. Nowhere has that prejudice against womankind been so pervasive as in the field of labor, especially on the matter of equal employment opportunities and standards. In the Philippine setting, women have traditionally been considered as falling within the vulnerable groups or types of workers who must be safeguarded with preventive and remedial social legislation against discriminatory and exploitative practices in hiring, training, benefits, promotion and retention.
The Constitution, cognizant of the disparity in rights between men and women in almost all phases of social and political life, provides a gamut of protective provisions. To cite a few of the primordial ones, Section 14, Article II on the Declaration of Principles and State Policies, expressly recognizes the role of women in nation-building and commands the State to ensure, at all times, the fundamental equality before the law of women and men. Corollary thereto, Section 3 of Article XIII (the progenitor whereof dates back to both the 1935 and 1973 Constitution) pointedly requires the State to afford full protection to labor and to promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all, including an assurance of entitlement to tenurial security of all workers. Similarly, Section 14 of Article XIII 10 mandates that the State shall protect working women through provisions for opportunities that would enable them to reach their full potential.
Corrective labor and social laws on gender inequality have emerged with more frequency in the years since the Labor Code was enacted on May 1, 1974 as Presidential Decree No. 442, largely due to our country's commitment as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Principal among these laws are Republic Act No. 6727 which explicitly prohibits discrimination against women with respect to terms and conditions of employment, promotion, and training opportunities; Republic Act No. 6955 which bans the "mail-order-bride" practice for a fee and the export of female labor to countries that cannot guarantee protection to the rights of women workers; Republic Act No. 7192 also known as the "Women in Development and Nation Building Act," which affords women equal opportunities with men to act and to enter into contracts, and for appointment, admission, training, graduation, and commissioning in all military or similar schools of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police; Republic Act No. 7322 increasing the maternity benefits granted to women in the private sector; Republic Act No. 7877 which outlaws and punishes sexual harassment in the workplace and in the education and training environment; and Republic Act No. 8042, or the "Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995," which prescribes as a matter of policy, inter alia, the deployment of migrant workers, with emphasis on women, only in countries where their rights are secure. Likewise, it would not be amiss to point out that in the Family Code, women's rights in the field of civil law have been greatly enhanced and expanded.
In the Labor Code, provisions governing the rights of women workers are found in Articles 130 to 138 thereof. Article 130 involves the right against particular kinds of night work while Article 132 ensures the right of women to be provided with facilities and standards which the Secretary of Labor may establish to ensure their health and safety. For purposes of labor and social legislation, a woman working in a nightclub, cocktail lounge, massage clinic, bar or other similar establishments shall be considered as an employee under Article 138. Article 135, on the other hand, recognizes a woman's right against discrimination with respect to terms and conditions of employment on account simply of sex. Finally, and this brings us to the issue at hand, Article 136 explicitly prohibits discrimination merely by reason of the marriage of a female employee.
x x x x x x x x x
In the case at bar, petitioner's policy of not accepting or considering as disqualified from work any woman worker who contracts marriage runs afoul of the test of, and the right against, discrimination, afforded all women workers by our labor laws and by no less than the Constitution. Contrary to petitioner's assertion that it dismissed private respondent from employment on account of her dishonesty, the record discloses clearly that her ties with the company were dissolved principally because of the company's policy that married women are not qualified for employment in PT & T, and not merely because of her supposed acts of dishonesty.
That it was so can easily be seen from the memorandum sent to private respondent by Delia M. Oficial, the branch supervisor of the company, with the reminder, in the words of the latter, that "you're fully aware that the company is not accepting married women employee (sic), as it was verbally instructed to you." 21 Again, in the termination notice sent to her by the same branch supervisor, private respondent was made to understand that her severance from the service was not only by reason of her concealment of her married status but, over and on top of that, was her violation of the company's policy against marriage ("and even told you that married women employees are not applicable [sic] or accepted in our company.") Parenthetically, this seems to be the curious reason why it was made to appear in the initiatory pleadings that petitioner was represented in this case only by its said supervisor and not by its highest ranking officers who would otherwise be solidarily liable with the corporation.
Verily, private respondent's act of concealing the true nature of her status from PT & T could not be properly characterized as willful or in bad faith as she was moved to act the way she did mainly because she wanted to retain a permanent job in a stable company. In other words, she was practically forced by that very same illegal company policy into misrepresenting her civil status for fear of being disqualified from work. While loss of confidence is a just cause for termination of employment, it should not be simulated. 24 It must rest on an actual breach of duty committed by the employee and not on the employer's caprices. Furthermore, it should never be used as a subterfuge for causes which are improper, illegal, or unjustified.
x x x x x x x x x
Petitioner would have the Court believe that although private respondent defied its policy against its female employees contracting marriage, what could be an act of insubordination was inconsequential. What it submits as unforgivable is her concealment of that marriage yet, at the same time, declaring that marriage as a trivial matter to which it supposedly has no objection. In other words, PT & T says it gives its blessings to its female employees contracting marriage, despite the maternity leaves and other benefits it would consequently respond for and which obviously it would have wanted to avoid. If that employee confesses such fact of marriage, there will be no sanction; but if such employee conceals the same instead of proceeding to the confessional, she will be dismissed. This line of reasoning does not impress us as reflecting its true management policy or that we are being regaled with responsible advocacy.
x x x x x x x x x
Finally, petitioner's collateral insistence on the admission of private respondent that she supposedly misappropriated company funds, as an additional ground to dismiss her from employment, is somewhat insincere and self-serving. Concededly, private respondent admitted in the course of the proceedings that she failed to remit some of her collections, but that is an altogether different story. The fact is that she was dismissed solely because of her concealment of her marital status, and not on the basis of that supposed defalcation of company funds. That the labor arbiter would thus consider petitioner's submissions on this supposed dishonesty as a mere afterthought, just to bolster its case for dismissal, is a perceptive conclusion born of experience in labor cases. For, there was no showing that private respondent deliberately misappropriated the amount or whether her failure to remit the same was through negligence and, if so, whether the negligence was in nature simple or grave. In fact, it was merely agreed that private respondent execute a promissory note to refund the same, which she did, and the matter was deemed settled as a peripheral issue in the labor case.
Private respondent, it must be observed, had gained regular status at the time of her dismissal. When she was served her walking papers on January 29, 1992, she was about to complete the probationary period of 150 days as she was contracted as a probationary employee on September 2, 1991. That her dismissal would be effected just when her probationary period was winding down clearly raises the plausible conclusion that it was done in order to prevent her from earning security of tenure. 27 On the other hand, her earlier stints with the company as reliever were undoubtedly those of a regular employee, even if the same were for fixed periods, as she performed activities which were essential or necessary in the usual trade and business of PT & T. The primary standard of determining regular employment is the reasonable connection between the activity performed by the employee in relation to the business or trade of the employer.
As an employee who had therefore gained regular status, and as she had been dismissed without just cause, she is entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges and to full back wages, inclusive of allowances and other benefits or their monetary equivalent. However, as she had undeniably committed an act of dishonesty in concealing her status, albeit under the compulsion of an unlawful imposition of petitioner, the three-month suspension imposed by respondent NLRC must be upheld to obviate the impression or inference that such act should be condoned. It would be unfair to the employer if she were to return to its fold without any sanction whatsoever for her act which was not totally justified. Thus, her entitlement to back wages, which shall be computed from the time her compensation was withheld up to the time of her actual reinstatement, shall be reduced by deducting therefrom the amount corresponding to her three months suspension.
The government, to repeat, abhors any stipulation or policy in the nature of that adopted by petitioner PT & T. The Labor Code state, in no uncertain terms, as follows:
Art. 136. Stipulation against marriage. — It shall be unlawful for an employer to require as a condition of employment or continuation of employment that a woman shall not get married, or to stipulate expressly or tacitly that upon getting married, a woman employee shall be deemed resigned or separated, or to actually dismiss, discharge, discriminate or otherwise prejudice a woman employee merely by reason of marriage.
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Further, it is not relevant that the rule is not directed against all women but just against married women. And, where the employer discriminates against married women, but not against married men, the variable is sex and the discrimination is unlawful. Upon the other hand, a requirement that a woman employee must remain unmarried could be justified as a "bona fide occupational qualification," or BFOQ, where the particular requirements of the job would justify the same, but not on the ground of a general principle, such as the desirability of spreading work in the workplace. A requirement of that nature would be valid provided it reflects an inherent quality reasonably necessary for satisfactory job performance. Thus, in one case, a no-marriage rule applicable to both male and female flight attendants, was regarded as unlawful since the restriction was not related to the job performance of the flight attendants.
Petitioner's policy is not only in derogation of the provisions of Article 136 of the Labor Code on the right of a woman to be free from any kind of stipulation against marriage in connection with her employment, but it likewise assaults good morals and public policy, tending as it does to deprive a woman of the freedom to choose her status, a privilege that by all accounts inheres in the individual as an intangible and inalienable right. Hence, while it is true that the parties to a contract may establish any agreements, terms, and conditions that they may deem convenient, the same should not be contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order, or public policy. Carried to its logical consequences, it may even be said that petitioner's policy against legitimate marital bonds would encourage illicit or common-law relations and subvert the sacrament of marriage.
x x x the danger of just such a policy against marriage followed by petitioner PT & T is that it strikes at the very essence, ideals and purpose of marriage as an inviolable social institution and, ultimately, of the family as the foundation of the nation. That it must be effectively interdicted here in all its indirect, disguised or dissembled forms as discriminatory conduct derogatory of the laws of the land is not only in order but imperatively required.”
CONCLUSION
Women may have greater access to legal remedy because of the prohibition and definition of discrimination that the laws like MCW provide. Human rights defenders may find additional legal bases in the law to demand accountability and end impunity for violations or denial of rights that many women continue to experience. Achieving the goals of the MCW is a monumental tasks amidst a male-oriented culture in the Philippines. The Courts and legal practitiones should remain vigilant that the magna carta and treaties for protection of women against sexual discrimination in the workplace is implemented in accordance with the visions and spirit of the laws.
By Atty. Janette Mae J. Dillomes