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Security of tenure
Security of tenure is the constitutional and Labor Code right of a regular employee not to be dismissed except for a just or authorized cause and with due process. Remote work in a U.S. Slack does not waive it.
Also called tenure
How it works
Once regular, the person is not at-will. Just causes are fault-based: serious misconduct, willful disobedience, gross neglect, fraud, crime against the employer, analogous causes. Authorized causes are business or health-based: installation of labor-saving devices, redundancy, retrenchment, closure, disease. Each path has its own notice and, for authorized causes, separation pay. Twin-notice applies to just-cause dismissals. A founder who deletes a login on Friday has not completed either path. Probation is the only period where failure to meet pre-stated standards is its own lawful exit, and only if those standards were given on day one.
Example: a regular EA hired 14 months ago misses two standups. That is not serious misconduct by itself. Ending the seat in Slack and stopping peso payroll is an illegal-dismissal fact pattern. Use the local employer’s process or buy a resignation.
How it differs
Regularization is how tenure attaches after probation. Endo is the scheme built to prevent attachment. Constructive dismissal is forcing a quit. Illegal dismissal is the case that follows a sloppy exit.
Common errors
Writing ‘at-will’ into a Philippine contract. Using a 90-day product guarantee as the only tenure rule after month seven.
In practice
Treat Security of tenure as a week-one operating object. Ask who signs the notice, who remits, and who would answer DOLE. If three vendors each point at the other, you have a story rather than a file. Write an owner - founder, local employer, or worker - and a date you will look at it again: first cutoff, first holiday, or first miss. If nobody can show a contract clause, a payslip line, a calendar block, or a checklist box, you do not have security of tenure yet. You have a conversation. Convert the conversation before the person starts, while changing the deal still costs a paragraph rather than a resignation. Re-read the worked example above against the actual hire in front of you. If the numbers in that example cannot be swapped for this seat’s pesos, hours, and start date, the brief is still unfinished.