Ski patrollers miffed by wages they say are too low for high living costs have put a wrench in operations at the biggest U.S. ski resort with a rare strike that began over the busy holidays and carried on into the new year’s fresh powder.
The resulting thin staffing at Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Range, has left many runs closed and caused long lines for ski lifts.
Yet some skiers who paid good money for passes are sympathetic. “Pay your employees!” they chant from lift lines in videos posted on social media.
Unionization is rare but increasing at U.S. ski resorts, including the one in Park City that is owned by Vail Resorts, which with 42 properties on three continents calls itself the world’s largest mountain resort operator.
As talks stalled, 200 patrollers went on strike on Dec. 27, alleging unfair bargaining by the company.
Here’s the latest on the strike:
What are ski patrollers?
They maintain safety at ski resorts by monitoring terrain, responding to accidents, hauling hurt skiers downhill and reducing avalanche risk, sometimes by releasing avalanches with explosives when nobody’s in range.
It’s a seasonal job. After the snow melts away, so do they.
Many in the Rocky Mountain region work as fly-fishing, mountain biking and whitewater rafting guides in the warmer months. Often they’re young people starting in the workforce.
Others spend decades honing skills in a physically demanding job.
The specialized work requires training and dedication — and ought to be compensated without too much stress over living costs in pricey mountain towns such as Park City, the ski patroller union argues.
The strike comes as actions by labor unions soared over the past couple of years. Unions secured meaningful employer concessions in recent months following strikes by Boeing factory workers, dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports, video game performers, and hotel and casino workers on the Las Vegas Strip.
The 45,000 dockworkers’ ongoing threats to resume their strike over automation would shut down ports and could damage the economy as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
What do the patrollers want?
Pointing to steep inflation since 2022, the Park City Professional Ski Patrollers Association has been negotiating since March, seeking an increase from $21 to $23 an hour. The union says $27 is considered a livable wage in pricey Park City, which is also home to Deer Valley Resort.
They also seek higher pay for the longest-serving ski patrollers. The current scale tops out after five years on the job.
“We just want to make sure these tenured patrollers are compensated for their skills and encouraged to stick around,” Park City ski patroller and association spokesperson Alana McClements said.
What does Vail Resorts say?
The ski patrollers got a big raise a couple years ago.
Vail Resorts argues it was generous with its 50% base-pay increase from $13 to $21 an hour in 2022. It’s now offering a 4% pay increase for most patrollers and $1,600 each year for their equipment.
“We deeply regret that this is having any level of impact on the guest experience and are grateful to our thousands of employees who are working hard every day to enable the experience at Park City Mountain and open the terrain,” Bill Rock, president of Vail Resorts mountain division, said in a statement.
What are the effects?
Snow has been falling thick and fast in Park City, with more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) in the past week. But much of Park City Mountain Resort is closed because of the strike.
As of Monday, only 25 of 41 lifts and 103 of 350 trails were open, according to the resort’s website.
Vail Resorts apparently has brought in nonunion workers from other resorts to help keep the one in Park City running, McClements said.
Union ski patrollers at other U.S. Vail Resorts properties, including Breckenridge, Crested Butte and Keystone in Colorado, have expressed solidarity with the Park City Mountain Resort workers and complained about pressure put on workers from elsewhere to go there.
Sympathizers include other workers at the resort, including ski instructors and snow groomers, who hope their own wages will increase if the patrollers are successful, ski instructor Grace Mauzy said.
“Ski patrol requires even more skilled learning than to be instructor, but to be instructor you also have to have skills training,” Mauzy said. “They’re both highly underpaid.”
There’s a wider sense, McClements said, that if Vail Resorts gives in to the union’s demands, ski workers elsewhere will demand increases.
“There is a history of mountain workers being paid unlivable wages because people view parts of the job as fun,” McClements said. “We definitely see this as a broader fight.”
What’s next?
Mediation between the association and company happened Monday and was scheduled again Tuesday, McClements said.
And this weekend, the forecast calls for more snow.
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Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed reporting from New York City.
