In a small town in Negros Oriental, employees formed a labor union.
Their employer (Hacienda) owned a sugarcane plantation and did not favor
employees associated to unions and refused to negotiate with the labor
union to discuss the collective bargaining agreement between the
hacienda and the laborers. The hacienda did not give work to 36
employees for more than a month, which led to the employees staging a
strike. Issues were temporarily settled when the hacienda and union
entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). Unfortunately, the MOA was
not followed and the hacienda even employed armed guards to ensure that
the employees could not enter the premises.
With the assistance
of Department of Labor and Employment, another MOA was reached. The
employees were supposed to be reinstated upon availability of work but
the hacienda reneged on its commitment once again. Hence, a case for
illegal dismissal was filed with the National Labor Relations Commission
(NLRC). In the hacienda’s defense, it argued that the employees were
merely seasonal employers and not regular employees who could file a
case of illegal dismissal.
The NLRC ruled that the hacienda
illegally dismissed its employees who were deemed regular employees
since they performed the same task for several years. The Court of
Appeals (CA) affirmed the NLRC’s decision -
[W]hile the work of
(employees) was seasonal in nature, they were considered to be merely on
leave during the off-season and were therefore still employed by
(hacienda). Moreover, the workers enjoyed security of tenure. Any
infringement upon this right was deemed by the CA to be tantamount to
illegal dismissal.
The Supreme Court agreed with the CA, holding
that the refusal of the hacienda to “make use of the services of their
employees, even when they were ready, able, and willing to perform their
usual duties whenever these were available, and hiring of other workers
to perform the tasks originally assigned to (them) amounted to illegal
dismissal of the latter.”
Article 280 of the Labor Code provides for the
distinction between regular and seasonal employees -
[a]n
employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been
engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable
in the usual business or trade of the employer, except where the
employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the
completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of
the engagement of the employee or where the work or services to be
performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is for the duration
of the season.
The Court clarified that in order to be classified
as a seasonal worker, and excluded from the classification of regular
employees, one must perform work or services that are seasonal in nature
and be employed only for the duration of one season.
On the other
hand, regular employees include seasonal employees who continuously and
repeatedly perform a particular nature of work as it is “sufficient
evidence of the necessity if not indispensability of that activity to
the business.” The employment is considered regular only with respect to
the activity and while such activity exists.
Citing De Leon v.
NLRC, “this Court has already settled that seasonal workers who are
called to work from time to time and are temporarily laid off during
off-season are not separated from service in said period, but merely
considered on leave until re-employed” (Hacienda Fatima v.
National Federation of Sugarcane Workers-Food and General Trade, G.R.
No. 149440, 28 January 2003, J. Panganiban).
source: Manila Times' Column of Benchpress
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