Two (2) Bills that address critical labor issues were recently approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The bicameral committees formed to reconcile the differing provisions of the bills decided to adopt the Senate versions for both the Security of Tenure and Service Charge bills.
Senate Bill 1826 or the “Security of Tenure and End of Endo Act of 2018” was endorsed by the bicameral committees for signature on 4 June, after deliberations in both houses of Congress that spanned almost an entire year. The Bill reinforces the prohibition on labor-only contracting and deems it existing if either the job contractor without sufficient capital or investment merely places workers to a contractee, or if the workers recruited are performing activities that are directly related to the principal business of the contractee.
The bill also significantly limits the number of occupations that could be contracted out mandating the Industry Tripartite Councils to determine the activities that are “directly related” to the main business of the contractee. These “directly related” functions could not be contracted out, and therefore must be directly hired by the contractee.
Senate Bill 1299, “An Act Providing that 100% of the Service Charge Collected in Hotels and Other Establishments be Distributed to all Covered Employees and for Other Purposes”, mandates hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments to equally distribute 100% of the service charge collected to all employees, with the exemption of managerial employees. The Senate version was endorsed by the bicameral committee on 29 May.
Both measures are on their way to the Office of the President for signature. Copies of the measures could be accessed via the following links:
Senate Bill 1826 – “Security of Tenure and End of Endo Act of 2018
[embeddoc url=”https://ecop.org.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SB1826-Security-of-Tenure.pdf” download=”all”]
Senate Bill 1299 – “An Act Providing that 100% of the Service Charge Collected in Hotels and Other Establishments be Distributed to all Covered Employees and for Other Purposes”
[embeddoc url=”https://ecop.org.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SB1299-Service-Charge-in-Hotels-and-Restaurants.pdf” download=”all”]
