When two British companies were recently accused of breaking employment law in Meribel, the story quickly gained momentum through the French and British press and finished last week as a feature item on BBC Radio One's Newsbeat.

Even allowing for the hype, recent events potentially have much significance throughout the whole of the British ski industry. In this article we try and explain what all the fuss is about.

The 'Most British' ski resort
Méribel tends to be featured on these pages more than any other resort. For better or for worse, it is the most British* of the resorts, with more British holidaymakers and more British workers than any other.

The importance of the British ski industry in Méribel (and to a lesser extent, Courchevel and La Tania) to the French economy should not be underestimated. Of the whole of France, only Paris raises more local taxes than Moutiers, and in Méribel British companies represent 50% of the resort's turnover.

Minimum wages?
Our view as the website for season workers is that working a season is hard work, but can be great fun. The view that sells newspapers and gets audiences is that it's a paid holiday.

Even the French have picked up on the stereotype. Liberation, reporting last month, claimed that British workers see themselves 'as on a cheap package holiday' where they 'sleep little, eat poorly and drink a lot'.

Anyone who imagines British workers eat poorly has clearly never seen a case of Chalet Girls Bum. The principle, however, remains.

The problem to the French is not so much the 'Benidorm' effect, but that France takes workers' rights more seriously than in the UK. The issue is the wage that British workers are paid, which falls well below the French minimum. Tour operators currently get round this by factoring in amounts for board and lodging, lift pass, ski hire etc. The question is whether this approach is legal.

Unfair competition?
One man who has a better understanding of the arcane depths of the law is Ed Mannix, once of Ski West and Bladon Lines, and now based permanently in Méribel, where he runs a consultancy advising British businesses in the Alps.

Mannix says that neither employers nor workers are unhappy with the current situation. 'Cooking and cleaning, it's not rocket science. There's no need to pay a huge amount.'

According to Mannix, tour operators say the rules were designed for mainstream businesses, not for them.

Unfortunately they are the rules that local businesses have to stick to. The French know the resort needs the British, but the situation seems unfair. Claude Dallery, president of the 'Syndicat des Hoteliers' in Méribel estimates a local hotelier can end up having to pay staff almost twice as much as a British employer. This alone can put the cost of a bed in a French hotel at almost twice that of a British company.

Good news for workers in the future?
Whether anything will change is a moot point. Two tour operators are currently being taken to court over a case of 'faux détachement'. Both cases relate to the interpretation of a technicality that allows secondment of staff, but only if guests are British and not French.

It remains to be seen whether fault can be proven. What remains certain is that the general issue of worker pay and conditions is not going to go away.

Some sort of compromise seems inevitable, and the good news is that it's workers who are likely to benefit. Wages have been creeping steadily upwards over the last few years, and the next area that's likely to be addressed is staff accommodation, often chronically overvalued in the salary package.

The days of staff crammed into unventilated cellars, converted cupboards or box rooms with no windows look numbered. Don't expect to hear any complaints from workers…

Useful Links
Original report in Liberation
Follow-up report in The Times
Later follow-up report in The Sunday Telegraph

* As the many Scots, Welsh, Irish et al who enjoy being there will testify, Meribel is not an 'English' resort.