Short answer. The label on the contract does not control your status. Article 280 of the Labor Code says a written or oral agreement to the contrary does not matter — if your work is usually necessary or desirable to the business, or you have rendered a year of service in that activity, the law treats you as regular.
What the law says
The provisions of written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding and regardless of the oral agreement of the parties, an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer
Labor Code, Article 280 — Regular And Casual Employment. Read the full provision →
What the law says
any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether such service is continuous or broken, shall be considered a regular employee with respect to the activity in which he is employed and his employment shall continue while such activity exists
Labor Code, Article 280 — Regular And Casual Employment. Read the full provision →
The contract's label does not override the statute
Article 280 opens with a pointed phrase: the provisions of written agreement to the contrary notwithstanding. A new document every few months calling the arrangement "casual" does not change what the law does when the underlying work is the same each time and fits the description of activities usually necessary or desirable to the employer's business. The statute is written specifically to prevent the label on paper from controlling the outcome the law otherwise dictates.
What repeated short-term contracts for the same job look like under this test
If the work itself is a recurring part of the employer's ordinary business, signing successive short contracts for that same work does not reset anything under Article 280 — the article looks at the nature of the activity performed, not at how the paperwork is broken into segments. Doing the identical job across several "new" agreements is still doing work that is usually necessary or desirable, each time, regardless of the paper trail.
The one-year proviso reaches broken service too
Article 280 also has a separate route to regular status that is directly relevant here: anyone who has rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or broken, is considered regular with respect to that activity, for as long as the activity continues. "Broken" service is the operative word — gaps between successive short contracts do not stop the clock from counting toward the one-year threshold for that same kind of work.
What this means if it is happening to you
Add up the time you have actually spent doing this work across all the successive contracts, not just the length of your current one. If the activity is genuinely necessary or desirable to the business, or your combined broken service reaches a year, Article 280 points toward regular status regardless of what any single contract you signed says. Keep copies of every contract and your dates of service, and raise the question with a lawyer if your employer disputes it.