FACTS: Petitioners, an electrician and member of shooting crew shooting were employees of Viva Films. Petitioners sought the assistance of their supervisors to facilitate their request that private respondents adjust their salary in accordance with the minimum wage law. The petitioners were informed that Mr. Vic del Rosario would agree to increase their salary only if they signed a blank employment contract. As petitioners refused to sign, private respondents forced petitioner Enero to go on leave then refused to take him back when he reported for work. Meanwhile, Petitioner Maraguinot was again asked to sign a blank employment contract, and when he still refused, private respondents terminated his services. Petitioners thus sued for illegal dismissal before the Labor Arbiter.
On the other hand, private respondents claim that Viva Films is primarily engaged in the distribution and exhibition of movies but not in the business of making movies; in the same vein, private respondent Vic del Rosario is merely an executive producer who is a financier who invests a certain sum of money for the production of movies distributed and exhibited by VIVA. Private respondents contend that petitioners are project employees of the association producers who, in turn, act as independent contractors. As such, there is no employer-employee relationship between petitioners and private respondents.
ISSUE: Whether or not the petitioners are project employees of an independent contractor, or regular employees of Viva Films.
RULING: The petitioners are regular employees of Viva Films.
The Supreme Court held that private respondents expressly admitted that petitioners were part of a work pool; and while petitioners were initially hired possibly as project employees, they had attained the status of regular employees in view if VIVA’s conduct.
A project employee or a member of a work pool may acquire the status of a regular employee when the following concur:
1) There is a continuous rehiring of project employees even after cessation of a project; and
2) The tasks performed by the alleged “project employee” are vital, necessary and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer.
However, the length of time during which the employee was continuously re-hired is not controlling, but merely serves as a badge of regular employment.
In the instant case, the evidence on record shows that petitioner Enero was employed for a total of two (2) years and engaged in at least eighteen (18) projects; while petitioner Maraguinot was employed for some three (3) years and worked on at least twenty-three (23) projects. Moreover, as petitioners’ tasks involved, among other chores, the loading, unloading and arranging of movie equipment in the shooting area as instructed by the cameramen, returning the equipment to the Viva Films’ warehouse, and assisting in the “fixing” of the lighting system, it may not be gainsaid that these tasks were vital, necessary and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the employer.
A work pool may exist although the workers in the pool do not receive salaries and are free to seek other employment during temporary breaks in the business, provided that the worker shall be available when called to report for a project. Although primarily applicable to regular seasonal workers, this set-up can likewise be applied to project workers insofar as the effect of temporary cessation of work is concerned. This is beneficial to both the employer and employee for it prevents the unjust situation of “coddling labor at the expense of capital” and at the same time enables the workers to attain the status of regular employees.
