GMA asks SC to reverse CA ruling on talents’ labor case

FILE: GMA Network Headquarters in Diliman, Quezon City. (Photo by MacarioHome at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

MANILA — Broadcast giant GMA Network has filed a petition before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to reverse the Court of Appeals (CA) ruling on a labor case in favor of 97 of its talents.

“To allow anything more to be given to respondents, who were already enjoying the clearly favorable benefits of the nature of the status as talents/independent contractors in GMA would not be really to champion the causes of labor but to derail the rights and interests of management and affect the balance and practice of the broadcast industry,” the network said in its 96-page petition dated January 20 and was made public Wednesday.

GMA asked the SC to reverse and set aside the decision last November of the Court of Appeals (CA) which has turned down a motion for reconsideration filed by the broadcast firm questioning its earlier decision.

The Talents Association of GMA (TAG), in response, said the network’s petition for review before the high tribunal is allegedly full of misleading statements in an attempt to sway the Supreme Court to reverse the consistent decisions of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and the CA.

The group noted that “GMA Network exempts itself from the basic precepts of labor and employment (in) saying the broadcast industry is unique and peculiar”.

The group also took exception to the description by the network that talents report to the office no more than “once a week, lasting just a few hours”.

In a two-page resolution dated November 25 by Associate Justice Zenaida T. Galapate-Laguilles of the CA’s Former Special 14th Division, the CA denied the motion filed by GMA.

Associate Justices Mario V. Lopez and Gabriel T. Robeniol concurred in saying the firm failed to present new evidence to bolster its case.

The CA ruling upheld its earlier decision on the case which came three years after the final entry of judgment by the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), declaring TAG members as regular employees of the broadcast network.

In its earlier decision, the appellate court dismissed GMA’s petition for certiorari and ruled that “when the work done is an integral part of the regular business of the employer and when the worker, relative to the employer, does not furnish an independent business or professional service, such work is a regular employment of such employee and not an independent contractor”.

Of the complainants, the longest employed was with the company since January 2002.