Chalet Staff - Wage confusion

A snowHead

@Dave of the Marmottes, Have you read the Ski Club of Great Britain new chat forum thread... I might be a bit of a cynic but if your first post on a forum is something that another couple of trolls have been moaning about in recent weeks????

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

You can always make a strong business case for slave labour. I'm with the push for a minimum wage, and strict enforcement. And that includes multinationals who are happy to take lots of money from the UK, but pay no taxes. If your business isn't viable without paying slave wages then it's not viable. Don't do it. Or pass the cost through to your customers. If they won't pay, then deal with it. I don't think that we have pushed through two thousand years of European history, culture and technological development, just to achieve a race to the bottom for wages, in competition with the Far East. And economically, that's a race we can't win anyway. And before the inevitable accusations of my being a quasi-communist business hater, I'm a businessman myself, a member of the IoD, and am happy to pay more than the minimum wage and my full 20% corporation tax and then my personal 40% tax. What I hate is (a) multinationals that get away with about 0.5% corporation tax (ii) other businesses who have to circumvent the minimum wage because they're incompetent and can't make their business pay and (iii) small SMEs who want unfettered (de)regulation but are the first to complain when they suffer the effects.

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Use of the term "slave labour" in this context is a bit ludicrous.

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No its not.

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@Hand Wringer, I agree. For people who proactively *want* to be there, I think calling them slaves is a bit extreme.

I think the word exploitation could still hold some truth, in some cases. But not always.

End of the day, here is my concept:

"Money" is basically a way of quantifying how much goods you can exchange for how much other goods. In the days before money, one farmer had some goats another farmer had some vegetables. Goat farmer gave vegetable farmer 20 goats in exchange for a cart full of vegetables. So both families could enjoy eating meat and vegetables for their dinner. But then you had the issue where the blacksmith made tools but the vegetable farmer didn't need tools... but the blacksmith still needed vegetables. So money was basically the simple way of giving goods a value, so that you could trade with anyone. You didn't have to be able to give them something, in order for them to give you something.

Then the concept of paying for services came along. Where you didn't trade at all, but you paid for somebody to do something for you.

We are all entitled to decide how much a service is worth, to us. Some people will pay £10,000 a week for a ski holiday and some people will try and keep it under a grand.

National Minimum Wage came about because some people are evil. People that could have paid employees a sensible low-end wage, chose to pay them even less so that they could keep more for themselves. And the people taking less for the jobs... they couldn't afford to say "no, I consider my service worth more than your offer" because they needed to eat and clothe themselves. So the greed of mankind led to civilised society having to legislate how little you could pay people.

Nobody is taking a ski chalet job because they just need to eat and clothe themselves. Everyone is in a position to say no. Therefore, they are looking at the whole deal. The wages suck, but they are looking at free accommodation, free food, and a season lift pass. They are deciding, on their own two feet, that the offer available to them is *worth* roughly the same (or better!) as the service that they are providing the chalet owners.

I feel that amongst good and like-minded people, you don't need minimum wage. People who are in a position to choose, who understand what they're undertaking and why they're undertaking it; are not in a position to be exploited and can walk away if they want to. They can do as much work under NMW as they like. I work in the creative industries and whilst my day-to-day job pays well over the NMW, I do projects with all sorts of people that are anything between expenses-only and full-rate. And I can choose which ones I do. And sometimes I choose to do something which doesn't pay very well because in my mind, I will gain something (whether that's satisfaction, experience, exposure, or whatever) that in itself is worth as much as the pay deficiency.

That's essentially how I see the chalet industry. We're not talking about slaves. We're not talking about people just needing to pay the rent and you're ripping them off. We're talking about people choosing to do something for their own satisfaction and take enough pay away from it to enjoy themselves and not have to worry. They're making that choice and if everyone is on the same page I don't have a problem with it

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Tied labour is probably the closest you'd get given that your employer has control over not just your working hours but your accomodation, leisure activities (lift pass) & probably a fair bit of your ability to socialise with friends e.g. if you are banned from TO property if you quit. It's like a modern version of working in service Downton Abbey style though I don't expect there is quite so much melodrama and maybe Mr Bates didn't swing his cock around quite so much after a drunken afternoon at the Folie.

I do think TOs have quite a lot of leverage over employees with the whole "on the plane next day" policy for quitters. Now of course smart quitters will have lined up some other gig and accomodation and lift pass dealio before they quit but not all.

I do agree though that its a willing bargain and there are enough chalet girl blogs out there to enable even the most naieve to go into the deal with their eyes open. As I always say great if you want lots of mates, lifeskills, quite a lot of graft and a good fun time without too much organisational effort. Probably not the best if you want to maximise your skiing* and have a marginally respectable living situation in which case the graft hard at home and save policy has the edge.

* now the good old days of being employed as a "ski guide" are over

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@dp, Presumably the sackings only occur as ship approaching port to limit collateral damage/dirty protests

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@Dave of the Marmottes, it is very difficult to replace someone mid season. So, the employers have to select well first time and keep the staff reasonably on side.

Doesn't always work out like that...

@Dave of the Marmottes nah not always... I had one of mine get fired on the first day of a transatlantic crossing... (8 days)

They basically locked him in his cabin. When I say lock, they didn't actually lock the door. But if he'd been caught out of it then he'd not be helping himself. (They can make your life suck some more if they want to... move you to a worse cabin right behind the engine, or feed you nothing but boiled chicken and orange squash like they do to people who've got diarrhoea).

The person in the above scenario basically got put in his cabin, had his cabin phone disconnected, had his internet privilege revoked, and was basically told to stay there, speak to nobody except his line manager (me) and that he'd be allowed out when we got to port. Not sure what the ethics of that are but it's ship rules!! I liked him as a person so I basically took him a movie hard drive and 2 crates of Corona and said good luck. To be honest I expect he appreciated the sleep and his pager not constantly going off.

But he was a gross misconduct (I did my best to get him a final written warning, so that he could resign and get a plane ticket), so despite his home town being Delhi, he was disembarked in New York with nothing but his belongings and his last month's pay in cash (which considering his nationality was very unlikely to be enough for a plane ticket home, so I hope he had some on a bank card) and given a ride with all the other leavers / transfers to JFK. He'll have literally had to walk up to every counter in the airport and ask how much a flight to India was going to cost. It's quite dreadful really. But the savage reputation is what keeps people in line I suppose.

Generally speaking, managers always try to get people final written warnings so that people can leave of their own accord. Even the gnarliest managers don't really want to see their staff 10,000 miles from home with nothing but their suitcase and an envelope full of dollars. It feels unbelievably crap.

You know it makes sense.

You quickly get a sense for who "gets" the ski industry and who doesn't when coversations like this come up.

Obviously, absolutely obviously, it's absurd to start chucking around terms like "slave labour" when it comes to chalet staff wages. Anyone doing so quite simply doesn't get it and probably never will.

Chalet staff are not slaves. They're usually 18-25 year olds on a gap year who are often living away from home for the first time. They know exactly what to expect before they go (I did 4 seasons for a major chalet operator and got exactly what I expected) and they agree to it. Seasons are short - 5 to 6 months max - and even if sharing a small apartment with 4/6 others isn't exactly living it up, it's the agreed price that young-ish people are willing to pay for the opportunity to live their dreams in the mountains.

£120 a week is actually pretty reasonable when your only overhead is beer. The TOs I worked for covered EVERY other expense - Rent, utilities, travel to and from resort, FULL board (including a decent amount of chalet wine), season lift pass, season ski and boot hire. Chalet staff who put in serious effort were hugely well rewarded by guests too. Some chalet staff consistently made €100+ weekly in tips. I knew of plenty of chalet staff who had their "salary" from the TO paid into their bank account in the UK and at the end of the season they hadn't touched it, "living" solely on the extra cash they made through hard work, diligence and friendly service in resort.

Nobody is out doing a season because they have no choice. The opposite, in fact, is true. Everyone has made a concisous choice. If you gave most under 25s the choice between getting a small amount of pocket-money in resort whilst someone else organises and pays for rent, bills, food, lift pass, ski hire etc or paying them 4 times more with zero support, most would choose the former.

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A snowHead

@froomie, the ski industry is a lot bigger than the chalet industry though.

A snowHead

True enough but this thread is about chalet staff wages so that's what I am on about here.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@froomie, I'm fairly sure that any resort worker can get a reduced rate lift pass by showing their employment contract to the lift company.

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Depends on which resort. If they are doing casual labour (bar work) they may well have no contract. They'd still be paying for it out of their own pocket, is my point.

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I am with @froomie, with this one, I did a few season in the mid to late nineties (as such unable to comment if conditions for chalet staff have deteriorated since then) but from my experience we were far from slaves.

from memory I signed a French contract to say I was working 2hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening, and was happy to do this, so as I could ski for free all season!!

I hardly ever touched my wages (paid in cash in resort) but instead lived on tips and honesty bar profit, I came home with around £1200 my first two seasons.

yes it was long hours and exhausting, but you generally was running on adrenaline and alcohol most of the time.

in general the only ones who did complain and jack it in were the few staff who arrived in resort without ever being able to ski or board in the first place, they tended to have come along with friends to work in the larger chalets (smaller ones were normally staffed by couples who had previous experience of running a home together), so had never experienced life in the alps (or chalet holiday) at winter at all, without knowing the logistical problems this might cause (clearing snow/drive down to the valley for shopping with snow chains/dealing with guest etc).

A small minority of these stayed on, learnt to ski/board and had a great experience.

the company I worked for prided itself in not only the percentage of returning guests, but resort staff as well.

TBH would go back in a heartbeat if family and business commitments didn't stop me!!!

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I agree with Clarky999
All points bang on target

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I think a serious point is that even if the arrangement does suit both employers and employees, it is done by breaking the laws of both the UK and France.

UK contracts are used, with staff seconded abroad - this is false as no-one ever does any work in the UK.
Salary is paid, and declared to HMRC in the UK, but benefits in kind (lift pass, equipment, accommodation etc.) are supplied abroad and not declared to HMRC
UK contracts allow the opting out from the 48hr maximum working week, but falsified time records are kept in case of interest from the French authorities who do not permit excessive working hours.

The chalet model may suit operators, staff, and customers, but as it does so by breaking the rules and provides unfair competition to other legal businesses I feel it days in current form may be numbered.

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@RobinS, I have to say... yes I wonder if there is some truth in that.

To those who've done seasons, do you get a paycheque which has your earnings on the left (at a legitimate basic wage); then down the right hand side have deductions for Tax, NI, Student Loan... and then Accommodation, Food, Lift Pass, etc? That would be the correct way to do it. You can't simply say 'your basic rate is less, because we give you free living'. It has to be that you're paid a legitimate wage and you're paying for your living expenses out of your wage.

@dp, I must admit I do not remember getting official payslips, or even being "seconded" to France, though lots of wine and beer has been consumed in the years since I worked seasons, so my memory is somewhat diminished!!

@clarky999, I just assumed that all seasonal workers for T/O's signed similar local contracts, I have a vague memory that the contracts were kept in the chalet in case of inspection by the Gendarmes, though we were told they had no legal right to open cupboard doors, so the honesty bar book was stashed away during the day, there was a license required on the front of the chalet regarding food, a different one was required for selling booze from what I remember (apparently they did not come knocking in the evening, though that could have been an urban myth)

though to be fair, employment laws/working hours directives have changed in the ensuing years

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Catered chalets are of course a rather uniquely UK thing.

A snowHead

@under a new name,

A snowHead

@deerman, why I used "rather" - yes. the Dutch seem to have become cross infected. But not to extent of the Brits.

I don't think any other nationalities have taken it up?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Scandinavians have been doing Chalets long before the Brit invasion

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Re UK Chalets Workers in EU ir any Winter/Summer job .

It will all change after Brexit.

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@stanton, I believe that the first chalet-style, catered holidays were organised by Erna Low (UK) in ~1932...

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@under a new name, Erna Low was Austrian

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@stanton, originally, yes, but she took UK citizenship. Her concept was partially to replicate the idea of the English House Party in hotels/houses in the Alps.

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@under a new name, It is not important but the UK Chalet Concept was exclusive when it started & thereafter for many years probably up & until
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The Scandinavian were doing mass market Chalets, allinc Apartments since the early 80,s bringing (hundreds) of Tourbusses (50 people)from as far as Finland taking upto 48hrs to get to Austria.

@stanton, but not in similar "chalet party style" home counties chalet girls serving tea and cakes at 16h30 surely?

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@under a new name, Yep all that and the famous Scandinavian Daily Picnics on the Hill-They still do it and when they do not hold them everyone gets a packed lunch ...

Local businesses hate it.

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Chalet Staff - Wage confusion

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