After reading “What are the instances when a local recruitment agency may be exempted from solidary liability?”, read also “What is the power of the corporation to increase or decrease capital stock or incur, create, increase bonded indebtedness?”
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As a general rule, the recruitment agency is solidarily liable with the foreign principal for unpaid salaries of a worker it recruited.
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The imposition of joint and solidary liability is in line with the policy of the State to protect and alleviate the plight of the working class.
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This exception is where the workers themselves insisted for the recruitment agency to send them back to their foreign employer despite their knowledge of its inability to pay their wages.
As a general rule, the recruitment agency is solidarily liable with the foreign principal for unpaid salaries of a worker it recruited. (Section 17, Rule V, Book I, Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Labor Code)
Jurisprudence says:
The obligations covenanted in the recruitment agreement between the local agent and its foreign principal are not coterminous with the term of such agreement so that if either or both of the parties decide to end the agreement, the responsibilities of such parties towards the contracted employees under the agreement do not at all end, but the same extends up to and until the expiration of the employment contracts of the employees recruited and employed pursuant to the said recruitment agreement. Otherwise, this will render nugatory the very purpose for which the law governing the employment of workers for foreign jobs abroad was enacted. (Skippers United Pacific, Inc. vs. Jerry Maguad, G.R. No. 166363 August 15, 2006)
The imposition of joint and solidary liability is in line with the policy of the State to protect and alleviate the plight of the working class. In the above-cited case, to allow petitioners to simply invoke the immunity from suit of its foreign principal or to wait for the judicial determination of the foreign principal’s liability before petitioner can be held liable renders the law on joint and solidary liability inutile. (ATCI Overseas Corp. vs. Echin, G.R. No. 178551, October 11, 2010)
There is, however, an exception to the solidary liability of recruitment agencies.
Jurisprudence says:
These individual statements voluntary signed by the private respondents to convince the reluctant petitioner to send them back to Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding their knowledge of the financial reverses of this employer, are eloquent individual waivers of their rights against petitioner. They were informed of the risk involved in returning to an employer in serious financial distress. They insisted on returning to work, even persuading petitioner to allow them to do so, by waiving the possible liability of petitioner. Under these circumstances, when private respondents were insisting to return to work despite the warning, We cannot consider their written waivers as to petitioner’s responsibilities void. They were not victims of deceit or deception. They entered into those waivers with open eyes and clear minds. They were aware of the imminent danger and the great risks involved in their renewed ventures. (Feagle Construction Corporation vs. Gavino Gayda, G.R. No. 82310 June 18, 1990)
This exception is where the workers themselves insisted for the recruitment agency to send them back to their foreign employer despite their knowledge of its inability to pay their wages, the Court, therefore, absolved the agency from liability.
Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices specializes in business law and labor law consulting. For inquiries, you may reach us at info@alburolaw.com, or dial us at (02)7745-4391/0917-5772207.
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