"x x x
The transfer/reassignment of respondents constitutes constructive dismissal.
Petitioners contend that the order transferring or reassigning respondents from their position as chief bakers to utility/security personnel is within the ambit of management prerogative as employer. They harp on the fact that no evidence was presented by respondents to show that they were dismissed from employment.
We have held that management is free to regulate, according to its own discretion and judgment, all aspects of employment, including hiring, work assignments, working methods, time, place and manner of work, processes to be followed, supervision of workers, working regulations, transfer of employees, work supervision, lay off of workers and discipline, dismissal and recall of workers. The exercise of management prerogative, however, is not absolute as it must be exercised in good faith and with due regard to the rights of labor.[28]
In constructive dismissal cases, the employer has the burden of proving that the transfer of an employee is for just or valid ground, such as genuine business necessity. The employer must demonstrate that the transfer is not unreasonable, inconvenient, or prejudicial to the employee and that the transfer does not involve a demotion in rank or a diminution in salary and other benefits. “If the employer fails to overcome this burden of proof, the employee’s transfer is tantamount to unlawful constructive dismissal.”[29]
In this case, petitioners insist that the transfer of respondents was a measure of self-preservation and was prompted by a desire to protect the health of the buying public, claiming that respondents should be transferred to a position where they could not sabotage the business pending resolution of their cases. According to petitioners, the possibility that respondents might introduce harmful substances to the bread while in the performance of their duties as chief bakers is not imaginary but real as borne out by what Tolores did in one of the bakeshops in Culasi, Antique where he was assigned as baker.
This postulation is not well-taken. On the contrary, petitioners failed to satisfy the burden of proving that the transfer was based on just or valid ground. Petitioners’ bare assertions of imminent threat from the respondents are mere accusations which are not substantiated by any proof. This Court is proscribed from making conclusions based on mere presumptions or suppositions. An employee’s fate cannot be justly hinged upon conjectures and surmises.[30] The act attributed against Tolores does not even convince us as he was merely a suspected culprit in the alleged sabotage for which no investigation took place to establish his guilt or culpability. Besides, Reyes still retained Tolores as an employee and chief baker when he could have dismissed him for cause if the allegations were indeed found true. In view of these, this Court finds no compelling reason to justify the transfer of respondents from chief bakers to utility/security personnel. What appears to this Court is that respondents’ transfer was an act of retaliation on the part of petitioners due to the former’s filing of complaints against them, and thus, was clearly made in bad faith. In fact, petitioner Reyes even admitted that he caused the reassignments due to the pending complaints filed against him. As the CA aptly held:
In the case at bench, respondent Reyes failed to justify petitioners’ transfer from the position of chief bakers to utility/security personnel. We find that the threat being alluded to by respondent Reyes – that the petitioners might introduce harmful foreign substances in baking bread – is imaginary and not real. We recall that what triggered the petitioners’ reassignment was the filing of their complaints against private respondents in the NLRC. The petitioners were not even given an opportunity to refute the reason for the transfer. The drastic change in petitioners’ nature of work unquestionably resulted in, as rightly perceived by them, a demeaning and humiliating work condition. The transfer was a demotion in rank, beyond doubt. There is demotion when an employee is transferred from a position of dignity to a servile or menial job. One does not need to stretch the imagination to distinguish the work of a chief baker to that of a security cum utility man.[31]
“[D]emotion involves a situation in which an employee is relegated to a subordinate or less important position constituting a reduction to a lower grade or rank, with a corresponding decrease in duties and responsibilities, and usually accompanied by a decrease in salary.”[32] When there is a demotion in rank and/or a diminution in pay; when a clear discrimination, insensibility or disdain by an employer becomes unbearable to the employee; or when continued employment is rendered impossible, unreasonable or unlikely, the transfer of an employee may constitute constructive dismissal.[33]
We agree with the CA in ruling that the transfer of respondents amounted to a demotion. Although there was no diminution in pay, there was undoubtedly a demotion in titular rank. One cannot deny the disparity between the duties and functions of a chief baker to that of a utility/security personnel tasked to clean and manage the orderliness of the outside premises of the bakeshop. Respondents were even prohibited from entering the bakeshop. The change in the nature of their work undeniably resulted to a demeaning and humiliating work condition.
In Globe Telecom, Inc. v. Florendo-Flores,[34] we held:
The managerial prerogative to transfer personnel must be exercised without grave abuse of discretion. It must always bear in mind the basic elements of justice and fair play. Having the right must not be confused with the manner that right is exercised. Thus, it cannot be used as a subterfuge by the employer to rid himself of an undesirable worker.
Petitioners’ claim that respondents abandoned their job stands on shallow grounds. Respondents cannot be faulted for refusing to report for work as they were compelled to quit their job due to a demotion without any just cause. Moreover, we have consistently held that a charge of abandonment is inconsistent with the filing of a complaint for constructive dismissal.[35] Respondents’ demand to maintain their positions as chief bakers by filing a case and asking for the relief of reinstatement belies abandonment.[36]
As the transfer proves unbearable to respondents as to foreclose any choice on their part except to forego continued employment, same amounts to constructive dismissal for which reinstatement without loss of seniority rights, full backwages, inclusive of allowances, and other benefits or their monetary equivalent, computed from the time their compensation was withheld up to the time of their actual reinstatement, should be granted.[37] The CA, therefore, did not err in awarding the reliefs prayed for by the respondents as they were, without a doubt, constructively dismissed.
