Project employment
Respondent Danilo Divina Tamayo Konstract, Inc. ( DDTKI) hired on Dec. 19, 2005, petitioner Marvin G. Felipe as formworks aide and petitioner Reynante L. Velasco on March 14, 2007 as warehouse aide. Petitioners claimed regular employment status for having continuously worked for DDTKI until September 2010, when they were no longer given working assignments. In a letter dated Sept. 28, 2010 they inquired from respondents about their employment status and why they were not transferred to the Glorieta project, which supposedly started on Sept. 17, 2010.
The respondents did not reply to their letter. Hence, on Oct. 12, 2010 they filed their complaint for illegal dismissal, non- payment of service incentive leave and 13th month pay against the respondents.
The respondents, on the other hand, claimed that the petitioners were their former project employees who were hired for a particular project. They presented various project employment contracts duly signed by the petitioners to support their claim that they were hired on specific construction projects for specific periods and that they were informed of the nature and duration of their employment from the beginning of their engagement. Whose claim finds merit?
Ruling: That of respondent DDTKI
As correctly noted by the Court of Appeals ( CA), petitioners’ employment was terminated due to the expiration of the period for which they were contracted. Considering that their employment contract for the US Embassy New Office Annex 1 Project ( MNOX1) had been terminated on Sept. 18, 2010, the CA correctly ruled that their termination from work was not illegal but that the project for which they were hired merely expired.
On their contention that they were regular employees due to their uninterrupted service for DDTKI for four years and the continuous employment contract renewal every month, petitioners are mistaken.
In Aro v. NLRC, 683 Phil. 605 ( 2012), the Court explained:
The length of service or the re-hiring of construction workers on a project-to-project basis does not confer upon them regular employment status, since their re-hiring is only a natural consequence of the fact that experienced construction workers are preferred. Employees who are hired for carrying out a separate job, distinct from the other undertakings of the company, the scope and duration of which has been determined and made known to the employees at the time of the employment, are properly treated as project employees and their services may be lawfully terminated upon the completion of a project. Therefore, being project employees who have been validly terminated by reason of the completion of the specific project, MNOX- 1, for which they were hired, petitioners Felipe and Velasco are not entitled to reinstatement and back wages. ( Mendoza, J., SC 2nd Div., Marvin G. Felipe and Reynante L. Velasco vs. Danilo Divina Tamayo Konstract, Inc. ( DDTKI), et. al., G. R. No. 218009, Sept. 21, 2016).
Employees who are hired for carrying out a separate job, distinct from the other undertakings of the company, the scope and duration of which has been determined and made known to the employees at the time of the employment, are properly treated as project employees and their services may be lawfully terminated upon the completion of a project.