One company, a single bargaining unit

"We hold that the Director of Labor Relations acted with grave abuse of discretion in treating the two companies as a single bargaining unit.  That ruling is arbitrary and untenable because the two companies are indubitably dis­tinct entities with separate juridical personalities." (G.R. Nos. L- 44493-94. 189 Phil. 396)

The general rule is that a corporation has a separate and district personality from the people composing it. Therefore, even if two corporations have the same shareholders and directors, they cannot be viewed as one. Such a rule applies in labor relations; two companies cannot be jammed together under one collective bargaining unit (CBU).

The exception is the principle of piercing of the corporate veil. Thus, if all the cross-linking of two or more corporations' command, control and communication systems indicate their unitary corporate personality, the veil of corporate fiction should be lifted for the purpose of allowing the employees of the said corporations to form a single labor union. As a single bargaining unit, the employees therein need not file three separate petitions for certification election. (G.R. No. 92357)