The new one tip law which has been in effect since Monday changes the rules of the game for clients, entrepreneurs and workers in those areas in which additional payment plays an important role, in services such as delivery at home or gastronomic sector, so the deputy of the Colorado Party, Sebastián Sanguinetti, stated that its objective is to repair “collateral damage of the Financial Inclusion Law”.
The law, approved in Parliament weeks ago, it clarified in its second article that under no circumstances will the employer be able to “dispose of the amounts,” since “this is an exclusive power of the workers.”
Article 1 of the law states that “every worker who habitually receives tip, or who performs tasks in which it is customary or customary to receive a tip, has the right to have it paid through the means of payment defined in article 1 of Law 19,210, of April 29, 2014″, that is, the Financial Inclusion Law.
“The employer has the obligation to apply the technology available so that customers can include tips in the transaction using the same payment method by which payment is made for the service or product to which the tip is included,” the rule adds.
Deputy Sanguinetti and the spirit of the tipping law
Deputy Sanguinetti, one of the drafters of the standard, entrusted to Ambit that what is being attempted is to fix “collateral damage from the Financial Inclusion Law”, which caused an increase in the use of the debit and credit cards and decreased circulation cash and, therefore, affected these workers who depend on tips to increase their income.
“When the incentives for the use of electronic means of payment, The behavior of Uruguayans regarding payments was changing. People preferred to use electronic means and were leaving cash aside, reaching a point that in 2022, between 80 and 90% of payments, according to the payment system of the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU), it was by electronic means,” Sanguinetti explained.
And he added: “The consequence of this is that gradually these workers were losing tip income and in these sectors they pay a fiction, Even if they receive 3 pesos or 10 thousand pesos per week in tips, they have to pay the same. These workers, in the gastronomic sector, service stations, hotels, delivery, decreased their tip income by a large amount.”
“So, it seemed like a great injustice. That is why the spirit of this initiative is that what the law states is that all companies will be forced to accept tips through electronic means of payment, regardless of the means they also use,” said the Colorado legislator.
Along the same lines, he clarified: “Here no one is being forced to become banked nor use electronic means of payment. “Those places where they do not accept electronic means of payment will not have any problems because their workers always received tips in cash.”
Sanguinetti He also made reference to a charge that financial companies have been making for the administration of tips, which would also affect the final income of workers, an aspect that the law also seeks to correct.
“One of the credit card stamps charged a higher administration fee.” taxes, So there the employer passed that cost on to the worker and obviously the tip was not in full. In this law, what we do is prohibit these amounts from being deducted from workers, the tip will go in full, just as one of the articles of the financial inclusion law says, that all those salary items, pensions, retirements “They cannot have any type of commission or administration charge,” he stated. Sanguinetti.
Regulations and complaints
The law has already been in force since January 29, but there are still some details for its final regulation. “It is going to be regulated for some minor issues, but workers can now demand that companies comply,” said the deputy.
Likewise, he recalled that “in case of non-compliance, companies are already subject to sanctions for non-compliance with labor laws” and announced that “complaints will be received by the General Inspection of Labor and Social Security.
Source: Ambito
