Elements of Relationship: Labor Code: Article 97 (a), (b), (c), (e); 173 (f), (g); 219
(e) & (f)
ART. 97. Definitions. - As used in this Title:
(a) "Person" means an individual, partnership, association,
corporation, business trust, legal representatives, or any organized
group of persons.
(b) "Employer" includes any person acting directly or indirectly in
the interest of an employer in relation to an employee and shall
include the government and all its branches, subdivisions and
instrumentalities, all government-owned or controlled corporations
and institutions, as well as non-profit private institutions, or
organizations.
(c) "Employee" includes any individual employed by an employer.
(d) "Agriculture" includes farming in all its branches and, among
other things, includes cultivation and tillage of soil, dairying, the
production, cultivation, growing and harvesting of any agricultural
and horticultural commodities, the raising of livestock or poultry,
and any practices performed by a farmer on a farm as an incident
to or in conjunction with such farming operations, but does not
include the manufacturing or processing of sugar, coconuts, abaca,
tobacco, pineapples or other farm products.
(e) "Employ" includes to suffer or permit to work.
(f) "Wage" paid to any employee shall mean the remuneration or
earnings, however designated, capable of being expressed in terms
of money, whether fixed or ascertained on a time, task, piece, or
commission basis, or other method of calculating the same, which
is payable by an employer to an employee under a written or
unwritten contract of employment for work done or to be done, or
for services rendered or to be rendered and includes the fair and
reasonable value, as determined by the Secretary of Labor and
Employment, of board, lodging, or other facilities customarily
furnished by the employer to the employee. "Fair and reasonable
value" shall not include any profit to the employer, or to any person
affiliated with the employer.
ART. 173. [167] Definition of Terms. 134 – As used in this Title, unless the context indicates
otherwise:
(f) "Employer" means any person, natural or juridical, employing the services of the employee.
(g) "Employee" means any person compulsorily covered by the GSIS under Commonwealth Act
Numbered One Hundred Eighty-Six, as amended, including the members of the Armed Forces of
the Philippines, and any person employed as casual, emergency, temporary, substitute or
contractual, or any person compulsorily
ART. 219. [212] Definitions.178 – (a) "Commission" means the National Labor Relations
Commission or any of its divisions, as the case may be, as provided under this Code.
(e) "Employer" includes any person acting in the interest of an employer, directly or indirectly.
The term shall not include any labor organization or any of its officers or agents except when
acting as employer.
(f) "Employee" includes any person in the employ of an employer. The term shall not be limited
to the employees of a particular employer, unless the Code so explicitly states. It shall include
any individual whose work has ceased as a result of or in connection with any current labor
dispute or because of any unfair labor practice if he has not obtained any other substantially
equivalent and regular employment.
1. Tests to Determine Employer-Employee Relationship – DOLE D.O. No.
147-15, Rule I-A, sec. 3; Amending the IRR of Book VI of the Labord Code of the
Philippines
Section 3. Employer-Employee Relationship. To ascertain the existence of an employer-
employee relationship, the four-fold test shall apply, to wit: (1) the selection and engagement of
the employee; (2) the payment of wages; (3) the power of dismissal; and (4) the power to control
the employee’s conduct, or the so called “control test.” The so-called “control test” is commonly
regarded as the most crucial and determinative indicator of the presence or absence of an
employer-employee relationship. Under the control test, an employer-employee relationship
exists where the person for whom the services are performed reserves the right to control not
only the end achieved, but also the manner and means used to achieve that end.
