Universal Robina Sugar Milling Corp. & Rene Cabati v.
Ferdinand Acibo even during the off-season, seasonal workers are not separated from the
et al.
G.R. No. 186439 Jan. 15, 2014 Brion, J.
DOCTRINE: Primary standard that determines regular employment is the
reasonable connection between the particular activity performed by the
employee and the usual trade or business of the employer, emphasizing on
the necessity or desirability of the employee’s activity.
FACTS: Universal Robina is a sugar cane milling corp., Cabati is the Business
Unit GM. Acibo et al. are its employees, hired on different dates, and in
different capacities (drivers, crane operators, bucket hookers, welders,
mechanics, lab attendants and aides, steel workers, laborers, carpenters and
masons). At the start of their employment, they signed one-month period
employment contracts or seasonal employment contracts. Universal Robina
repeatedly hired Acibo et al. to perform the same duties, and each time
required them to sign new employment contracts for the same period or
season.
Acibo filed complaints for regularization and entitlement to the benefits under
the existing CBA with the LA. LA dismissed, holding that they were seasonal
or project workers, not regular employees. They could not be regularized since
their respective employments were coterminous with the phase of the work or
special project, ending upon completion. As such, they were not entitled to
benefits under the CBA which covered only regular employees.
On appeal to the NLRC, they were declared regular employees. The activities
they were performed were usually necessary and desirable in the usual trade
or business of Universal Robina and had been repeatedly hired for the same
undertaking every season. Under Art. 295 Labor Code, they were regular
employees, hence entitled to CBA benefits.
CA affirmed. Primary standard for determining regular employment is the
reasonable connection between a particular activity performed by the
employee vis-à-vis the usual trade or business of the employer. This would be
determined by considering the nature of the work performed and the relation
of this work to the business or trade of the employer in its entirety. The
repeated and continuing need for these employees’ performance of the same
task, regardless of whether such was continuous or intermittent, constituted
sufficient evidence of the indispensability of activity to the business.
Universal Robina never gave them opportunity to work elsewhere during the
off-season, which could have qualified them as seasonal workers. Either way,
service but considered on leave until re-employed.
ISSUE: W/N Acibo et al. are regular employees – NO (but they are regular
seasonal employees)
HELD: As explained by the CA, Art. 295 of the LC provides for 3 kinds of
employment arrangements – regular, project/seasonal, and casual.
Regular employment refers to that arrangement where the employee has been
engaged to perform activities necessary or desirable in the usual trade or
business of the employer. Primary standard that determines regular
employment is the reasonable connection between the particular activity
performed by the employee and the usual trade or business of the
employer, emphasizing on the necessity or desirability of the employee’s
activity.
Casual employment is when the engagement lasts at least one year,
regardless of continuity. The controlling test in this arrangement is the length
of time during which the employee is engaged.
Project employment is an arrangement where the employment has been fixed
for a specific project or undertaking whose completion or termination has been
determined at the time of the engagement of the employee. The services of
the project employees are legally and automatically terminated upon the end
or completion of the project as the employee’s services are coterminous with
the project. Two requirements are necessary to defeat the presumption of
regularity of employment: a) designation of a specific project or
undertaking for which the employee is hired; and, b) clear determination
of the completion or termination of the project at the time of the
employee’s engagement. Seasonal employment is similar to project
employment, lasting for the duration of the season. To exclude seasonal
employees from being classified as regular employees, the employer
must show: a) the employee performed work or services seasonal in
nature; and, b) he had been employed for the duration of the season.
When seasonal employees are continuously and repeatedly hired to perform
the same tasks for several seasons or even after the cessation of the season,
this length of time may serve as a badge of regular employment. If these
workers classified as seasonal are called to work from time to time and merely
temporarily laid off during the off-season, they are not considered as separated
from service, but simply on leave until re-employed.
The indispensability or desirability of the activity performed by the employee
will not preclude the parties from entering into a valid fixed term employment
agreement.

Here, the employees were made to perform various tasks that did not pertain
to any specific phase of the milling operations that would cease upon
completion of a particular phase in the milling of the sugar. They performed
duties regularly and habitually needed by the company during the milling
season. Loader operators, hookers, crane operators and drivers hauled and
transported sugarcane from the plantation to the mill; lab attendants, workers
and laborers milled the sugar; and welders, carpenters and utility workers
ensured smooth and continuous operation of the mill for the season.

They were also regularly and repeatedly hired for the same tasks year after
year. Such regular and repeated hiring of the same workers for two separate
seasons in two different sets, set a system of regular seasonal employment in
the sugar industry and others with a similar nature of operations. Plantation
workers or mill employees did not work continuously for a whole year, but only
for the duration of the growing of the sugarcane, or for the milling season. The
Court has previously settled that seasonal workers, called to work from time to
time and temporarily laid off during the off-season are not separated from
service, but considered on leave until re-employment. They are regular
seasonal employees. As such, they cannot be lumped together with the
regular employees (such as the administrative or office personnel performing
their tasks the whole year, regardless of season) due to difference in the nature
of their duties and the duration of their work vis-à-vis the company’s
operations.