The Puerto Rico Restaurants Association (ASORE) and the United Retailers Center (CUD) opposed House Bill 1411, which was discussed at a public hearing on Monday, November 9, before the House Consumer Affairs Committee. The measure amends Puerto Rico’s Law on the Calculation of Tips so that when a customer expressly names the employee or employees they want to tip, that choice must be respected, and when no designation is made the tip is presumed to go to the employees who directly provided the service.
Tips attributed to an employee would not count as the employer’s operating income, and each employee could decide whether to keep them individually or join a voluntary tip-sharing agreement. ASORE president Sonia Navarro said the bill "would affect the team-service model, impose disproportionate administrative burdens and expose restaurants, mostly small and medium businesses, to considerable litigation risk," and warned that tip pools compensating service teams would depend on what each waiter decides to share.
CUD president Alan Taveras Sepulveda said documenting an employee’s choice to join or leave a pool would bring economic burdens to businesses. Rep. Ensol Rodriguez Torres, the bill’s author, said a restaurant employee in his district reported not knowing how much he earned in tips because they went into a pool his employer divided while squaring the $10.50 hourly wage, which he called illegal.
He said the bill has no fiscal impact. Consumer Affairs Department (DACO) interim secretary Irwin Alvarez Rodriguez endorsed the bill in a memorial as "laudable." Banks Association president Zoime Alvarez Rubio took no position on the labor provisions but opposed using the bill to add restrictions on electronic transaction charges.