Tips in employment legislation
Sinn Féin asked the House to support its Bill on protecting employees’ tips, arguing it would stop employers withholding gratuities. The Minister opposed it, saying the Bill would have unintended consequences and that Government preferred its own approach under wages legislation and a code of practice.
Report and Final Stages of the National Minimum Wage (Protection of employee Tips) Bill 2017, introduced by Sinn Féin, are due to be held in the Seanad tomorrow afternoon. This is important legislation which would make it illegal for an employer to withhold or deduct employees' tips and would require businesses to display their tipping policy so customers know how tips are distributed. The Bill has received cross-party support to date on Second Stage and Committee Stage and has received tremendous support from the trade union movement, particularly the ICTU, and from the ONE Galway and ONE Cork organisations. This is broadly supported and important legislation which would ensure that workers' tips are given the legal protection they deserve, and I believe it should be enacted as soon as possible. Will the Taoiseach indicate to us whether Fine Gael will support the legislation tomorrow?
Comment on this
While I totally agree with the premise of what the Bill tries to do, I cannot in good conscience agree with the unintended outcomes the Bill will produce if we pass the legislation, so no, I will not support it tomorrow. We want to ensure that tips are given to the people who receive them.
Comment on this
A tip is a gratuity from the patron of an organisation to reward good service. We propose to pass legislation to amend the Payment of Wages Act to ensure that tips cannot form part of anyone's wages and that tips are just that: a gift or gratuity between a patron body and a service. In addition, we have agreed with the industry a code of practice on transparency of the tips policy of each individual organisation. The outcome of Sinn Féin's Bill would be employers managing tips on behalf of employees. It would therefore result in all tips being taxed, which would have a negative outcome for the income earnings of the people who work in that relatively low-paid industry in the first instance. It would also have serious financial implications for people's working family payments and medical card applications. There are a lot of unintended consequences of the Bill that I do not think Sinn Féin meant.