As ski patrollers continue to strike at Park City Mountain Resort in Utah, workers at other mountains say they’re feeling ripple effects from parent company Vail Resorts’ response.
Vail Resorts has brought in non-union workers from other mountains to cover for the patrollers who have been picketing since Dec. 27, following nine months of contract negotiations.
The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association, whose members mitigate avalanche risks and provide first aid, are pushing to raise starting wages from $21 to $23 per hour and garner better benefits.
Park City stayed open through the holidays, which brought fresh snowfall, though visitors noted long lift lines and more limited terrain access.
Patrollers at other Vail-owned resorts say a “Patrol Support Team” established to backfill the striking workers at Park City is having detrimental effects at their mountains.
The Breckenridge Ski Patrol Union, Crested Butte Professional Ski Patrol Association and Keystone Ski Patrol Union joined with the Park City Professional Ski Association to pen a letter to Vail Resorts CEO Kristen Lynch this week, objecting to that tactic.
Jacob Randall is a six-year patroller at Keystone and a member of the bargaining team. He said ski patrol leaders at other Colorado resorts are being asked or pressured to go to Park City and that their home patrols aren’t being notified of the changes.
“These ski patrols are showing up to work without their patrol directors, assistant directors, their team leads,” he said. “It's really deteriorating the trust that we have within our own teams, it's causing a lot of distrust in the company, essentially, and I think it's going to cause a big divide between the ski patrols and management at each of these resorts.”
Randall said the unions want Vail to stop asking employees to cross the picket lines and, at the very least, to better communicate about the temporary assignments. The company said only seven patrollers from Colorado were brought to Utah and that skier safety at all of the resorts hasn’t been affected.
“I have so much gratitude for our patrol and safety teammates from Colorado who went to support our patrol leaders in Park City,” said Beth Howard, vice president and chief operating officer at Vail Mountain, in a news release. “I want to reassure our guests that this assignment for a very limited number of Colorado patrollers and safety professionals has had no impact on the safety at our resorts in Colorado.”
Several ski patrollers around the country have voted to unionize over the past five years. Randall said wages for the technical positions, which require expertise and training, haven’t kept up with the high cost of living in resort communities, or with inflation.
“The effects of COVID have really changed the whole economy right now and ski patrollers, I think, especially, are feeling that,” he said “It's just gotten to a breaking point where it can't be sustainable anymore.”
The Keystone Ski Patrol Union will resume its own bargaining negotiations with Vail Resorts on Jan. 8, with members demanding a boost to starting wages and changes in incentive pay rates.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
