BILIRAN

HOTEL, RESTAURANT & TOURISM INDUSTRY

TRIPARTITE COUNCIL

VOLUNTARY CODE OF GOOD

PRACTICES
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Brief Situationer
Introduction
Objectives of the code
Voluntary Code of Good Practices
I. Compliance with Labor standards

II. Training and Education

III. Hiring and Firing

IV. OJT and Intermittent Workers

V. Full Coverage to Social Protection

VI. Occupational Safety and Health

VII. Productivity

VIII. Dispute Settlement

IX. Social Dialogue

X. Collaboration of Government Partners

XI. Monitoring of the Code

 Biliran Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Industry Tripartite Council

BRIEF SITUATIONER

The Philippine archipelago is dotted with numerous tiny islands, some of which remain
largely undiscovered by travelers due to distance or lack of information. Several of these
beautiful but little known islands can be found in the Visayas and one of those is Biliran island.
The beautiful scenery of mountain ranges, falls and small islands surrounding Biliran have been
slowly discovered and visited not only by foreigners but also of locals. With this, hotel,
restaurant and tourism industry in the province can be considered as one of the booming
industry. The sector will have a bright future as the provincial government have strengthened
their Local Investment and Eco Promotion Office.

To date, hotels, inns, beach resorts, and restaurants have grown to a considerable number.

INTRODUCTION

This code is a collaborative effort developed in various stages from the deliberation of
the member of the Board of Trustees of the Tripartite Council in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism
Industry until its presentation and approval by the general assembly. This is a “living document”
which will continually be updated to the relevant to the changing of times therefor;

Even if this code had been agreed by a number of our members, this does not a set a
binding effect on the members which have adopted or joined the code. The commitment to this
code is voluntary.

This is however crafted to provide practical benchmark and best practice guidance
among hotels, restaurant and the wider tourism industry to meet our moral, social and
environmental obligations and maintain a high standard of effectiveness in addition to our
commitment to adhere to law, good customs, morals, and public policy.

Monitoring mechanism thru self-regulation, best practice/s recognition and

benchmarking shall be regularly observed by our members.
The Tripartite Council for Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Industry (TC-HRT) therefore calls upon
those in the Industry and its stakeholders to support this voluntary code.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CODE

1. To promote continuous growth and development in the hotel, restaurant and tourism
industry through proactive strategies in meeting global challenges so it could provide
globally competitive service, meet its goals and provide decent work to its employees;

2. To promote regular and effective good neighbor communication principle, thru:

a) Sharing, benchmarking, monitoring/evaluation and recognition of the best

practices among members;
b) Policy consultations; and
c) Social dialogue

3. To encourage positive interaction between employers and employees, among member

schools and community thereby promoting good neighbor communication principle
identifying and addressing issues relevant to the tourism industry;

4. To promote best occupation safety, security, health, and environmental practices and
performance in the tourism industry;

5. To address issues of emigration of trained and skills tourism employees to other nations
by ensuring safety nets so as not to cause impairment to the local tourism industry;

6. To intensify partnership with the labor Tripartite Council in Education to equip students
with values and skills for careers that match the needs of the tourism industry;

7. To institutionalize productivity and performance based incentive schemes for better

return of investment to the management and corresponding higher benefit to the
workers;

8. To institutionalize voluntary conciliation mechanism in the ITC-HRT to provide

conciliation/mediation services when sought upon by parties as concurrent or alternate
avenue for dispute settlement; and to create & strengthen industry level Labor
Management Council or its equivalent for dispute resolution among member schools;

9. To provide contractual and intermittent workers decent employment and provide them
with skills and training for continues self- improvement;

10. To strengthen our collaboration and partnership with DOLE, TESDA. RTWPB, NCMB,
DOT, DTI, DOH, the academe & other government agencies for unified strategies,
approaches and programs in advancement of the tourism industry.

VOLUNTARY CODE OF GOOD PRACTICES

 I. ON COMPLIANCE WITH LABOR STANDARDS

1. We commit to voluntarily comply with labor standards laws and institute measures to
improve the working conditions of our workers. Towards this end, we shall abide with
existing core labor standards, endeavor to submit periodic reports of compliance as
prescribed.

2. We value loyalty of our employees and establish salary scales to provide incentives for
their long and dedicated services;

II. ON TRAINING AND EDUCATION

1. We shall strengthen our linkage and coordination with TESDA for certification of skills of
the manpower requirement for our industry;;
2. We shall partner with the Labor Tripartite Council in Education on designing proactive
strategies to prepare the student with values and skills that would match their careers in
our industry;
3. We shall collaborate with the Department of Tourism, TESDA, LGUs, NGOs, DTI, DOLE,
DOH, DENR, Academe and other government agencies in its programs for the Industry.

III. ON HIRING AND FIRING

1. We shall not in any discriminate applicants and existing employees on account of age,
religion, sex, and physical changes; Neither shall we terminate employees on account of
marriage with their co-employees;
2. We shall limit the sub-contracting of our operations so as not to circumvent regular
employment;
3. We workers shall observe 30-day resignation notice to allow management to look for
our replacement;
4. We workers shall be provided with proper orientation on company policies, guidelines
and standard operating procedures.

IV. ON THE JOB TRAINEES AND INTERMITTENT WORKERS

1. We value the services of OJTs, seasonal and intermittent workers, being potential part
of our regular workforce; we ensure their capability building the equip them with
practical knowledge and experience according to the skills they are trained on;
2. We shall treat our OJTs with utmost care giving them meals and incentives in a
wholesome work environment that promotes their health, safety;
3. We shall limit their work hours to the normal eight hours work and shall require
overtime work only in exigency of the service where total hours shall not exceed ten
hours a day;

V. FULL COVERAGE TO SOCIAL PROTECTION

 Our goal is to ensure that our workers become committed and focused on their work
knowing fully well that they are protected in any eventualities.
Toward this end:
1. We shall collaborate with SSS, Philhealth and Pag-IBIG to provide continuing awareness
on their specific programs;
2. We shall ensure that all our employees are enrolled with SSS, Philhealth and Pag-IBIG;
and
3. We shall comply with SSS, Philhealth and Pag-IBIG laws and issuances.

VI. OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

1. We shall strongly promote policies and programs advocating health options and healthy
lifestyle to our employees as we commit to drug-free, accident free, HIV-Aids free,
sexual harassment free workplaces;
2. We shall implement policies and programs on health, security, safety and crisis
management, the implementation of which we shall clearly communicate to all levels of
our organization to include our sub-contractors and our guests as we strive to achieve
zero accident in our workplaces;
3. We shall promote “big brother-small brother” programs in our workplaces where we
share responsibility with our sub-contractors in providing adequate trainings on
occupational safety, security and health (OSSH) for the protection of our contractual
employees;
4. We shall include in our contracts of services in the case of contractual employees and
memorandum of agreement with schools in the case of OJTs, provisions on occupational
safety, security and health in order to safeguard the lives and limbs of our contractual
employees, OJTs and other intermittent workers;
5. We promote proactive best practices in security and crime prevention, thru security and
emergency preparedness trainings and measures against terrorism attacks and the like;
We shall equip our workplaces with emergency management and response capacity,
lockdown and evacuation procedures, crisis media and communications in the event of
disaster and crises.
6. We shall adopt the green workplace program in our workplaces acknowledging the
value of nature being the show case of our industry.
7. We support all OSSH programs of the DOLE, OSHC, DOH, DENR and OSHNET and ensure
that we abide by their rules and regulations and support their programs.
8. We, employees shall uphold at all the safety, security and health among our ranks and
shall serve as models of healthy and respectable lifestyles worthy of emulation by our
students.
VII. ON PRODUCTIVITY

1. We shall initiate productivity incentive and performance based schemes where both
management and our employees shall commit to continues productivity improvement
as our moral and social obligation to ourselves and our stakeholders.
2. We shall cooperate and coordinate with the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity
Board (RTWPB) in its policies and programs enhancing the productivity and quality of
our services.

VIII. ON DISPUTE SETTLEMENT

 1. We shall institutionalize dispute settlement mechanisms and create labor management
councils or its equivalent at both plant-level and industry level through ITC-HRT;
2. We shall take advantage of the continuing labor and management education program of
the Department of Labor and Employment in order to enhance labor-management
relations, human skills and productivity in workplaces;
3. We shall continue to be active members of ITC-HRT which is an effective avenue for
social dialogue, policy review and consultations and for capability trainings and seminars
on conciliation and mediation techniques and other alternative dispute resolution
mechanisms through the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB);

IX. ON SOCIAL DIALOGUE

The ITC-HRT shall be a vehicle for social dialogues between and among stakeholders in
the tourism industry, addressing issues and concern of the times, conducting policy review and
consultations and capability trainings and seminars upgrading the social awareness of its
members.
X. COLLABORATION OF GOVERNMENT PARTNERS
We in the government agencies – DOLE and its attached agencies, (RTWPB, NCMB,
TESDA) with DOT, DTI, DOH, DENR and the LGUs shall establish collaboration and partnership
sharing a common roadmap to provide the tourism industry the support and commitment to
achieve the objectives of this code.
XI. ON MONITORING OF THE CODE
The Tripartite Council in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Industry shall institutionalize
monitoring mechanisms of this code to include recognition of best practices program in
individual & industry category for:
Best Human Resource Management (HRM) practices
Best management practices
Best company practices
Best health and safety practices
Best practices of remuneration and productivity improvement
We shall promote benchmarking, and self-regulating strategies in keeping up with this
code. We shall continue to upgrade this code to keep it dynamism and relevance to the hotel,
restaurant and tourism industry. We are committed to formulate an evaluation tool to be used
as guidelines in assessing best practices of our members.
We, members of the Board of Trustees of the Biliran Tripartite Council in Hotel,
Restaurant and Tourism Industry, in behalf of our members extend our full support to achieve
the noble objectives of this code.

ELIAS A. CAYANONG, CESO III

Chairman, RTIPC

MA. ALITA P. CHAVEZ

Sr. LEO/OIC-BFO