LINGAT v. COCA-COLA BOTTLERS

 

LINGAT ET AL., VS. COCA-COLA BOTTLERS PHILS., INC.

[GR No. 205688, July 4, 2018]

 

FACTS

On May 5, 2008, petitioners filed a Complaint for illegal dismissal, moral and exemplary damages, and attorney's fees against Coca-Cola Bottlers Phils., Inc. (CCBPI), Monte Dapples Trading Corp. (MDTC), and David Lyons (Lyons) (respondents).

Petitioners averred that, in August 1993 and January 1996, CCBPI employed Lingat and Altoveros as plant driver and forklift operator, and segregator/mixer respectively. They added that they had continually worked for CCBPI until their illegal dismissal in April 2005 (Lingat) and December 2005 (Altoveros). According to petitioners, they were regular employees of CCBPI because it engaged them to perform tasks necessary and desirable in its business or trade. They explained that CCBPI made them part of its operations, and without them its products would not reach its clients. They asserted that their work was the link between CCBPI and its sales force.

Petitioners alleged that CCBPI engaged Lingat primarily as a plant driver but he also worked as forklift operator. Petitioners further stated, that after becoming regular employees (as they had been employed for more than a year), and by way of a modus operandi, CCBPI transferred them from one agency to another. These agencies included Lipercon Services, Inc., People Services, Inc., Interserve Management and Manpower Resources, Inc. The latest agency to where they were transferred was MDTC. Petitioners stressed that the aforesaid agencies were labor-only contractors which did not have any equipment, machinery, and work premises for warehousing purposes. They insisted that CCBPI owned the warehouse where they worked; the supervisors thereat were CCBPI's employees; and, petitioners themselves worked for CCBPI, not for any agency.

For their part, CCBPI and Lyons argue that this case must be dismissed because the Labor Arbiter (LA) lacked jurisdiction, there being no employer-employee relationship between the parties.  CCBPI and Lyons declared that CCBPI was engaged in the business of manufacturing, distributing, and marketing of softdrinks and other beverage products. By reason of its business, CCBPI entered into a Warehousing Management Agreement with MDTC for the latter to perform warehousing and inventory functions for the former.

CCBPI and Lyons insisted that MDTC was a legitimate and independent contractor, which only assigned petitioners at CCBPI's plant in Otis, Manila. They posited that MDTC carried on a distinct and independent business; catered to other clients, aside from CCBPI; and possessed sufficient capital and investment in machinery and equipment for the conduct of its business as well as an office building.

CCBPI and Lyons likewise stressed that petitioners were employees of MDTC, not CCBPI. They averred that MDTC was the one who engaged petitioners and paid their salaries. They also claimed that CCBPI only coordinated with the Operations Manager of MDTC in order to monitor the end results of the services rendered by the employees of MDTC. They added that it was MDTC which imposed corrective action upon its employees when disciplinary matters arose.

Finally, CCBPI and Lyons averred that when the Warehousing Management Agreement between CCBPI and MDTC expired, the parties no longer renewed the same. Consequently, it came as a surprise to CCBPI that petitioners led this complaint considering that CCBPI was not their employer, but MDTC.

 

ISSUES:

1. Whether or not there exists an employer-employee relationship between Petitioners and Respondent CCBPI

2. Whether or not MDTC was a legitimate labor contractor and was the actual employer of petitioners

RULING:

1. Relating petitioners' tasks to the nature of the business of CCBPI — which involved the manufacture, distribution, and sale of soft drinks and other beverages — it cannot be denied that mixing and segregating as well as loading and bringing of CCBPI's products to its customers involved distribution and sale of these items. Simply put, petitioners' duties were reasonably connected to the very business of CCBPI. They were indispensable to such business because without them the products of CCBPI would not reach its customers.

Interestingly, in Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, Inc. v Agito, the Court held that respondents salesmen therein were regular employees of CCBPI as their work constituted distribution and sale of its products. The Court also stressed in A g it o that the repeated rehiring of those salesmen bolstered the indispensability of their work to the business of CCBPI.

Similarly, herein petitioners have worked for CCBPI since 1993 (Lingat) and 1996 (Altoveros) until the non-renewal of their contracts in 2005. Aside from the fact that their work involved the distribution and sale of the products of CCBPI, they remained to be working for CCBPI despite having been transferred from one agency to another. Hence, such repeated re-hiring of petitioners, and the performance of the same tasks for CCBPI established the necessity and the indispensability of their activities in its business.

 

2. No, MDTC was not a legitimate labor contractor and was the actual employer of petitioners.

Based on their Warehousing Management Agreement, CCBPI hired MDTC to perform warehousing management services, which it claimed did not directly relate to its (CCBPI's) manufacturing operations. However, it must be stressed that CCBPI's business not only involved the manufacture of its products but also included their distribution and sale. Thus, CCBPI's argument that petitioners were employees of MDTC because they performed tasks directly related to "warehousing management services," lacks merit. On the contrary, records show that petitioners were performing tasks directly related to CCBPI's distribution and sale aspects of its business.

 

To reiterate, CCBPI is engaged in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of its products; in turn, as plant driver and segregator/mixer of soft drinks, petitioners were engaged to perform tasks relevant to the distribution and sale of CCBPI's products, which relate to the core business of CCBPI, not to the supposed warehousing service being rendered by MDTC to CCBPI. Petitioners' works were directly connected to the achievement of the purposes for which CCBPI was incorporated. Certainly, they were regular employees of CCBPI.