ABS-CBN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, petitioner, vs. MARLYN NAZARENO, MERLOU GERZON, JENNIFER DEIPARINE, and JOSEPHINE LERASAN, respondents.
G.R. No. 164156 September 26, 2006
Facts:
ABS-CBN (petitioner) employed respondents as production assistants (PAs) and were assigned at the news and public affairs, for various radio programs in the Cebu Broadcasting Station. They were issued ABS-CBN employees’ IDs and were required to work for a minimum of eight hours a day, including Sundays and holidays. On December 19, 1996, ABS-CBN and the ABS-CBN Rank-and-File Employees executed a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). However, since petitioner refused to recognize PAs as part of the bargaining unit, respondents were not included to the CBA.
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On October 12, 2000, respondents filed a Complaint for Recognition of Regular Employment Status, Underpayment of Overtime Pay, Holiday Pay, Premium Pay, Service Incentive Pay, Sick Leave Pay, and 13th Month Pay with Damages against the petitioner before the NLRC. They insisted that they belonged to a "work pool" from which petitioner chose persons to be given specific assignments at its discretion, and were thus under its direct supervision and control regardless of nomenclature.
ABS-CBN maintained that as program employees, a PA’s engagement is coterminous with the completion of the program, and may be extended/renewed provided that the program is on-going. Hence, their compensation is computed on a program basis, a fixed amount for performance services irrespective of the time consumed.
On July 30, 2001, the Labor Arbiter rendered judgment in favor of the respondents, and declared that they were regular employees of petitioner. On appeal, the NLRC set aside and vacated the Labor Arbiter’s decision and entered a new one ordering ABS-CBN to pay respondents of their wage differentials and other benefits arising from the CBA as of 30 September 2002. In sustaining the decision of NLRC, CA averred that respondents are not mere project employees, but regular employees who perform tasks necessary and desirable in the usual trade and business of petitioner and not just its project employees.
Issue:
Whether or not respondents are regular employees.
Ruling:
Yes, respondents are regular employees. Citing Article 280 of the Labor Code, the Supreme Court stated that any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or intermittent, is deemed regular with respect to the activity performed and while such activity actually exists.
The Supreme Court further mentioned that there are two kinds of regular employees under the law: (1) those engaged to perform activities which are necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer; and (2) those casual employees who have rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or broken, with respect to the activities in which they are employed.
What determines whether a certain employment is regular or otherwise is the character of the activities performed in relation to the particular trade or business taking into account all the circumstances, and in some cases the length of time of its performance and its continued existence. It is obvious that one year after they were employed by petitioner, respondents became regular employees by operation of law.
Respondents cannot be considered "talents" because they are not actors or actresses or radio specialists or mere clerks or utility employees. Additionally, respondents cannot be considered as project or program employees. The principal test is whether or not the project employees were assigned to carry out a specific project or undertaking, the duration and scope of which were specified at the time the employees were engaged for that project. In this case, it is undisputed that respondents had continuously performed the same activities for an average of five years. Their assigned tasks are necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the petitioner.
It follows then that respondents are entitled to the benefits provided for in the existing CBA between petitioner and its rank-and-file employees. As regular employees, respondents are entitled to the benefits granted to all other regular employees of petitioner under the CBA.