Ski chalet holidays in Austria threatened by new wage rules A number of operators including Inghams, Ski Esprit, Ski Total and VIP run their own hotels as well as chalets at reasonable prices in Austria with mainly British staff. They maintain this would not be possible if they were forced to pay Austrian minimum wages. If they do not abide by the new rules, tour operators could face fines of up to 10,000 euros per employee for a first offence or up to 20,000 euros where three or more staff are involved - on top of paying any backlog in wages and social security payments. The colourfully-named Anti Wage and Social Dumping Act was primarily aimed at maintaining wage levels as migrant workers arrived from new member states of the European Union. British tour operators were urgently seeking clarification of the law today and hoping to arrange at least an amnesty for this ski season. When a similar amendment to the law was introduced in Switzerland in June 2013, British tour operators had already contracted properties for last winter and were given an amnesty until the start of this coming season. As a result mass market tour operators have virtually dropped their Swiss chalet programmes this season. Andy Perrin, CEO of Hotelplan UK, which includes Inghams, Ski Total and Ski Esprit said: ": "It's one more kick in the teeth. We first heard about this only a fortnight ago and we are trying to make sense of it. We take extreme exception to the suggestion that we are wage dumping. On the salary packages that we offer what our staff have in their pockets is considerably more than anyone on the minimum wage in the UK. We do not see this as the way to go about such far-reaching and Draconian change. We have staff contracted for the season and already in place in Austria. We have our first guests arriving in a fortnight and our brochures for winter 2015/16 are due out in three weeks. Yet these regulations supposedly start from January. Powder White has nine chalets in St Anton. MD Fraser Ewart-White commented: "These highly damaging proposals would lead to a large increase in employment costs, which will affect the viability of providing good-value chalet holidays in Austria. We are working with other ski operators to challenge these plans which, if passed, would hurt the Austrian tourism industry immensely. We would ask the Austrian government to think very hard about these law changes, which, if implemented, would be bad news for the country and also not enable operators to pull out this season if they wanted to, due to holidays already sold. Ironically, the change in the law in Switzerland has seen a marked increase in bookings to Austrian resorts such as Lech and St Anton this autumn. If the law is enforced from New Year, the short-term winners will be chalet staff working in Austria, who are likely to have their wages boosted dramatically. However, if that situation arises, it seems unlikely that most of those jobs will be available next winter.