Senate bill allows resto, hotel workers 100% access to service charge

FILE: Once Senate Bill No. 1299 is enacted into law, restaurant and hotel workers, whether regular, contractual, or agency-hired, would be entitled to a 100 percent service charge as long as they would directly deliver the service to their customers. (PNA Photo)

MANILA — The Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading a measure that would allow restaurant and hotel employees 100 percent access to service charges collected from customers.

Once Senate Bill No. 1299 is enacted into law, restaurant and hotel workers, whether regular, contractual, or agency-hired, would be entitled to a 100 percent service charge as long as they would directly deliver the service to their customers.

Senator Joel Villanueva, principal author, and sponsor of Senate Bill No. 1299, said the proposed measure seeks to “address the injustice brought upon our hardworking workers in the service industry who provide the actual service but rarely get their proper share in the collection.”

At present, restaurant and hotel workers are given only 85 percent of the total tips collected from customers while management retained the remaining 15 percent.

Management gets 15 percent of the service charge proceeds to answer for losses or breakages. However, if there were no losses or breakages, the 15 percent was the management’s prerogative for disposition or distribution among managerial employees.

Villanueva, chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, filed his measure saying sharing distribution had not changed since it became law in 1975.

“The bill does not make the collection of service charge mandatory to avoid interference with the right to management to exercise discretion in the operation of their business. The proposed 100 percent service charge for our workers would benefit both the workers and the employers,” Villanueva said in his sponsorship speech.

Philippine Qualifications Framework Act of 2017

Also approved on third and final reading is Senate Bill No. 1456, or the Philippine Qualifications Framework Act of 2017, which was also authored and sponsored by Villanueva.

This bill seeks to institutionalize the Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF) to address job mismatch and align training and education of Filipino workers with actual industry standards and needs.

The Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF) is defined by the bill as “the national policy which describes the levels of educational qualifications and set the standards for qualification outcomes.”

Villanueva said that under SBN 1456, the PQF would “adopt national standards and levels of learning outcomes of education, and as well as support the development and maintenance of pathways and equivalencies that enable access to qualifications and assist individuals to move easily between the different education and training sectors and the labor market.”

“The PQF will pave the way for every Filipino to become a lifelong learner by allowing him or her to start at the level that suits him or her and then build-up his or her qualifications as his or her needs and interests develop and change over time,” Villanueva said.

He said that under the PQF, school curriculums would not be fixed, as these “should correspond to the progress of technology and development of new work especially in Information Technology, Robotics, Logistics, Renewable-Energy, Travel and Hospitality, etc.”

To accomplish this, the bill said that training and educational institutions would now have to conform to standards and qualifications set by the Philippine Qualifications Framework-National Coordinating Council (PQF-NCC) mandated “to harmonize and promote a seamless education and training system.” (PNA)