FACTS: The complainants were employees of URSUMCO. They were hired on various dates and on different capacities. At the start of their respective engagements, the complainants signed contracts of employment for a period of one (1) month or for a given season. URSUMCO repeatedly hired the complainants to perform the same duties and, for every engagement, required the latter to sign new employment contracts for the same duration of one month or a given season. Subsequently, the complainants filed before the LA complaints for regularization, entitlement to the benefits under the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The Labor Arbiter dismissed the complaint for lack of merit. The LA held that the complainants were seasonal or project workers and not regular employees of URSUMCO. The LA pointed out that the complainants were required to perform, for a definite period, phases of URSUMCO’s several projects that were not at all directly related to the latter’s main operations. As the complainants were project employees, they could not be regularized since their respective employments were coterminous with the phase of the work or special project to which they were assigned and which employments end upon the completion of each project. Accordingly, the complainants were not entitled to the benefits granted under the CBA that, as provided, covered only the regular employees of URSUMCO.
ISSUES:
(1) Whether or not the respondents are regular employees of URSUMCO; and
(2) Whether or not affirmative relief can be given to the fifteen (15) of the complainants who did not appeal the LA’s decision.
RULING:
(1) Yes, the respondents are regular employees of URSUMCO.
Under Article 280 of the Labor Code, the length of time of the asserted “project” employee’s engagement is not controlling as the employment may, in fact, last for more than a year, depending on the needs or circumstances of the project. Nevertheless, the continuous rehiring of the employee even after the cessation of the project may serve as a badge of regular employment when the activities performed by the purported project employee are necessary and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer. Seasonal employment operates much in the same way as project employment, albeit it involves work or service that is seasonal in nature or lasting for the duration of the season. As with project employment, although the seasonal employment arrangement involves work that is seasonal or periodic in nature, the employment itself is not automatically considered seasonal so as to prevent the employee from attaining regular status.
To exclude the asserted “seasonal” employee from those classified as regular employees, the employer must show that: (1) the employee must be performing work or services that are seasonal in nature; and (2) he had been employed for the duration of the season. Hence, when the “seasonal” workers are continuously and repeatedly hired to perform the same tasks or activities for several seasons or even after the cessation of the season, this length of time may likewise serve as badge of regular employment. In fact, even though denominated as “seasonal workers,” if these workers are called to work from time to time and are only temporarily laid off during the off-season, the law does not consider them separated from the service during the off-season period. The law simply considers these seasonal workers on leave until re-employed.
Interestingly, the Labor Code does not mention another employment arrangement – contractual or fixed term employment (or employment for a term) – which, if not for the fixed term, should fall under the category of regular employment in view of the nature of the employee’s engagement, which is to perform an activity usually necessary or desirable in the employer’s business.
In this case, the respondents were made to perform various tasks that did not at all pertain to any specific phase of URSUMCO’s strict milling operations that would ultimately cease upon completion of a particular phase in the milling of sugar; rather, they were tasked to perform duties regularly and habitually needed in URSUMCO’s operations during the milling season. Needless to say, they perform the activities that are necessary and desirable in sugarcane production. As in the milling of sugarcane, the plantation workers perform their duties only during the planting season.
The respondents were regularly and repeatedly hired to perform the same tasks year after year. This regular and repeated hiring of the same workers for two separate seasons has put in place, principally through jurisprudence, the system of regular seasonal employment in the sugar industry and other industries with a similar nature of operations.
While the petitioners assert that the respondents were free to work elsewhere during the off-season, the records do not support this assertion. There is no evidence on record showing that after the completion of their tasks at URSUMCO, the respondents sought and obtained employment elsewhere.
(2) No, the Supreme Court held that, in sum, we find the complaint to be devoid of merit. The issue of granting affirmative relief to the complainants who did not appeal the CA ruling has become academic.
