Dear Mr.

JMM Marquez,
We confirm receipt of your inquiry regarding the wages paid to your
employees specifically the carpenters and your full time workers engaged in
leche flan-making.
As to your first question, unfortunately we are of the opinion that your two
full time carpenters have a cause of action against you. Although the nature
of your business would seem like agricultural since what is involved is
basically a large poultry farm which technically would mean raising livestock
as defined in Article 97 (d) of the Labor Code, it should however be noted
that when the harvests are processed into finished product or transformed to
another product, the processing now becomes industrial. The differentiation is
important because the agriculltural pay rate is generally lower than the
industrial. Since the farm produces eggs and are transformed to make a leche
flan by processing the eggs, mixing it with milk, sugar and other ingredients
using an automated machinery and kitchen equipment designed for the
purpose, what is really the nature of your business is industrial (leche flanmaking). Therefore, it is removed under the ambit of an agricultural
establishment hence, the carpenters should be paid not based on the
minimum agricultural wage but on wages classified under the nonagricultural sector.
Having said this, the workers who are responsible for making the leche flan,
particularly the 10 employees, should also be paid under the same
classification mentioned above, the non-agricultual sector.
We thank you for trusting us on your query.

Best regards,

Team Makinano