6 fired by Korean firm awarded P2M in damages

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) ruled in favor of six employees who had been dismissed from work, and ordered their employer, a Korean-owned company, to pay them P2 million in moral and exemplary damages.

In a 15-page decision on Oct. 24, 2012, labor arbiter Edgar Bisana found Daeduck Philippines Inc. (DDPI) “guilty of illegal dismissal” against six workers—Crispin Recto, Ronald Briguel, Jovener Valdez, John Hervie de Sosa, Harold King Pablo and Jaymar Santiago.

DDPI was also ordered to reinstate the workers “without loss of benefits and seniority rights.”

The six were hired by DDPI as production operators in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards in its facility in Rosario, Cavite. Recto, Briguel and Valdez were hired in 2005 and the rest in 2009.

In their complaint, the workers said they were asked by the company to sign employment contracts under Silver Peak Manpower Services, an in-house labor contractor, immediately after being hired.

The workers were on a five-month renewable contract until they were transferred to Maximum Solutions Corp. (MSC), another labor contractor, when the DDPI ceded its contract with MSC.

The workers, on Aug. 17, 2011, filed a case to be regularized but in September and October of the same year, DDPI fired them.

Bisana said he did not believe DDPI’s claim the workers were direct employees of a subcontracting firm.