Is recruitment agency's liability to OFW coterminous with contract with foreign employer?
A private employment agency may be sued jointly and solidarily with its foreign principal for violations of the recruitment agreement and the contracts of employment. (Section 10 (a) (2) Rule V, Book I, Rules to Implement the Labor Code.
In a case where the employment agency and the foreign principal severed their agency agreement at the time the worker was injured, the agency may still be sued for a violation of the employment contract if no notice of the agency agreement's termination was given to the said worker.
The obligations covenanted in the recruitment agreement entered into by and between the local agent and its foreign principal are not co-terminus 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. (Manuela S. Catan vs. NLRC, G.R. No. L-77279, April 15, 1988)
In a case where the employment agency and the foreign principal severed their agency agreement at the time the worker was injured, the agency may still be sued for a violation of the employment contract if no notice of the agency agreement's termination was given to the said worker.
The obligations covenanted in the recruitment agreement entered into by and between the local agent and its foreign principal are not co-terminus 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. (Manuela S. Catan vs. NLRC, G.R. No. L-77279, April 15, 1988)
