- Petitioner
- Osmalik S. Bustamante
- Respondent
- NLRC
- Citation
- G.R. No. 111651
- Court
- Supreme Court
- Division
- First Division
- Ponente
- Padilla, J.
- Decided
- March 15, 1996
Whether petitioners are entitled to backwages after being found to be regular employees who were illegally dismissed from their employment
Summary
This Supreme Court case involved five agricultural workers who were illegally dismissed by Evergreen Farms, Inc., a banana plantation company. The workers had been employed at various periods from 1985-1989 and were rehired in 1989 with six-month contracts, but were terminated in June 1990 allegedly due to poor performance and age. The Labor Arbiter found the dismissal illegal and awarded backwages, which the NLRC initially affirmed but later deleted on reconsideration, claiming the company acted without bad faith. The Supreme Court reversed the NLRC's deletion of backwages, holding that the workers had become regular employees under Article 280 of the Labor Code through their performance of necessary activities and more than one year of broken service. The Court found bad faith in the company's pattern of using probationary contracts as a 'convenient subterfuge' to deny regular employee status, and ordered full backwages from dismissal until reinstatement. This decision reinforced the protection of workers' tenurial interests against employer manipulation of employment classifications.