Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has assured the speedy crafting of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Republic Act 11360, a newly signed law that requires restaurants, hotels, and similar establishments to distribute service charges in full to their rank-and-file and supervisory employees.
“We have 90 days to craft the IRR but we don’t intend to maximize it, instead we hope to come up with it as soon as possible so our workers in hotels and restaurants can finally receive reasonable incentives from their hard work and quality services,” Bello said.
The law signed by the President amended Article 96 of the Labor Code, which only provides workers with 85 percent of the service charge collection while the remaining 15 percent are for the management.
Under the new law, all service charges shall be distributed completely and equally among the covered workers except managerial employees.
“The law will keep our workers in the hotel and restaurants motivated in providing quality services, as well as a chance to give them a simple reward for their hard work,” Bello said.
The new law also mandates the establishment of a grievance mechanism to resolve any dispute between employees and the management on the distribution of the service charge.
Workers can fully receive their equal distribution from the full collected service charges 15 days after the publication of its IRR in a newspaper of general circulation. ###(AbegailDeVega, Information and Publication Service, Department of Labor and Employment)
