Unreasonable transfer

Sometimes an employee, like any reasonable person, only feels compelled to resign or give up his position under certain circumstances. Hence a case may arise involving the issue of whether there is resignation or dismissal like in this case of Manny.

Manny was the manager of a commercial bank branch in a central Visayan city where he and his family resided. Because of published reports that there were anomalies hounding high ranking officials of said bank, major depositors started making huge withdrawals from the bank branch. Concerned about this development, Manny approached Ben who was the bank’s Visayas-Mindanao Area head to discuss how to resolve the problem. But Ben just brushed off the issue. So Manny requested the Mayor of a nearby town who was a known big depositor of the bank, to talk to Ben.

Ben however misinterpreted Manny’s move as a form of threat. So the next day he angrily confronted Manny and accused him of seeking support from the Mayor. He told Manny that he cannot be threatened even if all the depositors pull out all their deposits immediately but that he will he see to it that Manny will be replaced. If not, Ben said, he will manage the branch himself or he’ll have the branch under the Luzon area so that he will have nothing to do anymore with said branch.

And true enough, Ben replaced Manny and instructed him to go to the head office and report to Mario, the Vice President and Head of the Branch Banking Division. So Manny had to fly to Manila as ordered where Mario told him to undergo training. But no such training took place. Instead he was made to do clerical jobs. And since he was just staying in a rented house far from the head office, at least half of his travel and living expenses were consumed by daily 4-hour commuting. So four months later, Manny tendered his resignation. Thereafter he filed a complaint against the bank for illegal constructive dismissal.

The bank however insisted that Manny voluntarily resigned and was not constructively dismissed. The bank claimed that his transfer was not done unceremoniously and was not motivated by bad faith but pursuant to a valid order to undergo Branch Head Training for gross inefficiency. Furthermore, the bank said that his transfer did not entail any change in rank and compensation and was in accordance with his employment contract which provides that he can be given a different assignment anytime. In fact after his branch training he was assigned to a task force in charge of reconciling all book entries of all the branches, the bank contended. Was the bank correct?

No. In constructive dismissal cases, the employer has the burden of proving that the transfer of an employee is for valid and legitimate grounds such as genuine business necessity. The employer must be able to show that such transfer is not unreasonable, inconvenient or prejudicial to its employee. Failure to discharge this burden makes the employee’s transfer a constructive dismissal.

In this case, the bank failed to discharge this burden. The combination of harsh actions by the bank rendered Manny’s employment condition hostile and unbearable.

First, there was no urgency or genuine necessity to transfer Manny who was able to show the actual motive and the bad faith behind his transfer. The bank was not able to prove that Manny had a record of gross inefficiency necessitating his transfer for branch training in the head office.

Second, Manny’s transfer is clearly unreasonable, inconvenient and oppressive since he and his family are residents of the Visayan City. He was placed in the very difficult predicament of having to live away from his family or to bring them to Manila which entails additional expenses.

Third, the bank failed to present any valid reason why it had to require Manny to go to the Head Office for branch training when it could just have required him to undertake the same training in the Vis-Min area.

And finally, there was nothing in the order of transfer as to what position Manny would occupy after his training thereby effectively placing him on a “floating status”. The bank’s allegation that he was assigned to a sensitive position is suspect considering that he was made to undergo branch training which is totally different from a position that entails reconciling of book entries of all branches which is essentially an accounting task.

Based on these factual considerations, Manny was indeed constructively and illegally dismissed because of the hostile and unreasonable working conditions in the bank (Philippine Veterans bank vs. NLRC and Martinez , G.R. 188882, March 30, 2010)

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