Rare patroller strike in Park City fouls operations at the biggest US ski resort
Ski patrollers, chafing at wages they say are too low for the high cost of living, have disrupted operations at America’s largest ski area with a rare strike that began during the busy holiday season and continued into the fresh snow of the new year.
Low staffing levels at Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort, about 30 miles east of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Range, have closed many slopes and created long lines for ski lifts.
Still, some skiers who paid good money for ski passes are sympathetic. “Pay your employees!” they sing from lift lines in videos posted to social media.
Unionization is rare but on the rise at U.S. ski resorts, including the one in Park City owned by Vail Resorts, which calls itself the world’s largest mountain resort operator with 42 properties on three continents.
When talks broke down, 200 patrols went on strike on December 27, citing unfair negotiations by the company.
Here’s the latest on the strike:
They ensure safety at ski resorts by monitoring the terrain, responding to accidents, dragging injured skiers downhill and reducing avalanche danger, sometimes by setting off avalanches with explosives when no one is within range.
It is a seasonal job. After the snow has melted, so do they.
Many in the Rocky Mountain region work as fly fishing, mountain biking and whitewater rafting guides in the warmer months. It is often young people who enter the labor market.
Others spend decades honing their skills in a physically demanding job.
The specialized work requires training and dedication — and should be compensated without too much stress about the cost of living in expensive mountain towns like Park City, the ski patrol union argues.
The strike comes at a time when union action has increased dramatically in recent years. Unions have won meaningful employer concessions in recent months following strikes from Boeing factory employees, longshoremen at ports on the East Coast and Gulf Coastvideo game artists and hotel and casino staff on the Las Vegas Strip.
The 45,000 dock workers continue threats to resume their strike Excessive automation would close ports and harm the economy when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
The Park City Professional Ski Patrollers Association points to steep inflation since 2022 and has been negotiating an increase from $21 to $23 per hour since March. The union says $27 is considered a living wage in expensive Park City, home to the Deer Valley Resort.
They are also demanding higher pay for the longest-serving ski patrollers. The current scale reaches its peak after five years of service.
“We just want to make sure these regular patrollers are compensated for their skills and encouraged to stay,” said Alana McClements, Park City ski patroller and spokesperson.
The ski patrollers got a big pay increase a few years ago.
Vail Resorts says it was generous with a 50% increase in base pay from $13 to $21 per hour by 2022. It is now offering a 4% pay increase for most patrollers and $1,600 per year for their equipment.
“We deeply regret that this will have any impact on the guest experience and are grateful to our thousands of associates who work hard every day to make the Park City Mountain experience possible and open the property,” said Bill Rock, president of Vail Resorts Mountain Division, said in a statement.
Snow has fallen thick and fast in Park City this past week, with more than 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow. But much of Park City Mountain Resort is closed because of the strike.
On Monday, only 25 of the 41 lifts and 103 of the 350 trails were open, according to the resort’s website.
Vail Resorts apparently brought in non-union workers from other resorts to keep the one in Park City running, McClements said.
Union ski patrollers at other American Vail Resort properties, including Breckenridge, Crested Butte and Keystone in Colorado, have expressed solidarity with Park City Mountain Resort workers and complained about pressure put on workers from elsewhere to move there to go.
Sympathizers include other workers at the resort, including ski instructors and snow groomers, who hope their own wages will increase if the patrols are successful, said ski instructor Grace Mauzy.
“Ski patrol requires even more skills than being an instructor, but to be an instructor you also need to have skills training,” Mauzy said. “They are both grossly underpaid.”
There is a broader sense, McClements says, that if Vail Resorts gives in to the union’s demands, ski workers elsewhere will demand raises.
“There is a history of mountain workers being paid unlivable wages because people view parts of the job as fun,” McClements said. “We absolutely see this as a broader struggle.”
The mediation between the association and the company took place on Monday and was scheduled again on Tuesday, McClements said.
And this weekend the weather forecast predicts more snow.
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Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed reporting from New York City.