No tolerance for employers who pay workers less than what is set out in collective agreements, but caution against turning isolated incidents into a generalised problem. That is the position of USOT (Unione Sammarinese Operatori del Turismo, the San Marino Association of Tourism Operators), which has responded to a statement by USL (Unione Sammarinese dei Lavoratori) concerning alleged wages of under €4 gross per hour paid to some students during the summer season.
For USOT, the underlying principle is clear: if a business fails to meet contractual minimum wages, the violation must be verified, reported and corrected. At the same time, however, the association is asking the union to provide more precise details — how many pay slips were examined, how many young workers and businesses were involved, and what proportion of the sector these cases actually represent.
«A company that gets it wrong is not the whole sector,» USOT stresses, pushing back against the risk of extending individual responsibility to the entire hotel and restaurant industry. The association also notes that USL itself, while denouncing the phenomenon, expressed hope in its own statement that these were merely «a few exceptions».
USOT also addressed the contractual rules themselves, pointing out that the single collective labour agreement covering hotels, restaurants, bars and canteens — signed by employers’ associations as well — already sets an entry-level wage for category 1/B equal to 80% of category 1/A. No further reductions are permitted for this category, while for higher categories any reduction cannot exceed 10% of the gross hourly rate.
The association also clarified the rules surrounding the 70% social security relief available for hiring students, which does not automatically apply to summer employment but is instead tied to specific requirements and procedures. This incentive, USOT reiterated, is designed to help young people enter the workforce and cannot be used to justify paying less than what is legally owed.
Finally, the association invited USL, should it hold documentation of actual violations, to forward the cases — even in anonymised form — to the Labour Office and other competent bodies, providing figures and the criteria used to calculate wages.
USOT reaffirmed its «full willingness to cooperate with inspections» and highlighted the free training sessions it organises twice a year for member businesses and staff. Its request, however, is that isolated or still-unverified incidents should not be turned into a blanket accusation against the entire San Marino tourism sector.
