Over the weekend, as members of Park City Mountain’s ski patrol union continued their unfair labor practice strike against Vail Resorts, they sent a clear message to the company and those frustrated over the effects of their walkout.
“We are ready to get back to opening terrain as soon as the company brings us a fair contract,” the union, the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association, said on its Instagram page. “Our skis are in our cars.”
On Monday, Deirdra Walsh, the vice president and chief operating officer of Park City Mountain, announced the company’s willingness to return to the table.
“We were so pleased to learn this morning that the federal mediator has provided us with additional dates,” Walsh said in a statement. “We will be meeting with her and the union this afternoon and tomorrow. We remain committed to reaching an agreement.”
In the statement, Walsh also claimed Vail Resorts was ready to meet with the union last Friday, the day the strike began, and was “disappointed when the union instead took the drastic action of a strike.”
The union said their negotiators have been ready to meet at any time during the strike and even met with the mediator on Friday. Vail Resorts did not join.
Quinn Graves, a business manager for the union, said that if Vail Resorts agreed to all demands, the company would spend less than $1 million a year more than it does now.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Andrew Hennigh, a 16-year veteran ski patroller at Park City, joins colleagues as they officially go on strike, citing unfair labor practices and marking the latest chapter in the union’s negotiations with Park City Mountain and its owner, Vail Resorts on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024.
Strike effects on resort
By Monday at 11:30 a.m., Park City Mountain Resort had stopped selling lift tickets — though it was allowing pass holders to ride the lifts.
A post on X, formerly Twitter, by Lift Blog, which monitors conditions at ski resorts, showed that on Sunday, 17% of the Park City resort’s terrain was open — 61 out of 350 trails, and 25 out of 41 lifts.
The resort itself on Monday stopped posting the percentage of open terrain on its website but did post that 19 of its 41 lifts and 45 of its 350 trails were open.
Many travelers skiing in Park City took to X to voice their frustrations. Among them was Jackie Schaffer, whose profile shows she’s from Sandy Spring, Maryland.
“40 min lift lines at Park City today. Total waste of one of our Epic pass days,” Schaffer wrote. “Figure out how to get your ski patrol back to work. Your revenue will suffer.”
Greg Munves, CEO of the marketing tech company OpenBrand, also weighed in.
“Not sure what @VailResorts is thinking, but they need to resolve their dispute,” he wrote on X. “The combination of a weak snow year with the ski patrol strike is leaving every guest on the mountain pissed off and feeling ripped off. Exceedingly long lines and limited terrain is evidence of their master class in poor planning and lack of customer success.”
On Saturday, the union said on its Instagram page that before the strike, there were at least 100 patrollers scheduled to work on the mountain. “Instead, Vail forced ~30-35 employees to open the mountain without us,” the post says.
Graves, who has been on the picket line for the past few days, said she has heard from skiers that patrol response times have been slower than usual — and lines have grown long.
The “Commitment to Safety” section of Park City Mountain’s patrol website states that, if necessary, the company would deploy a patrol support team of experienced patrollers from Park City Mountain and “our other mountain resorts” — teams that, the website asserts, have specialized training in any terrain they’re assigned.
Sara Huey, the director of community and government affairs for Vail Resorts, said it’s not unusual for the resort to offer limited terrain this early in the season with the current snowpack.
“It is also disappointing to have members of the Park City Mountain ski patrol on strike,” she said. “In general, we have been pleased with our ability to operate pretty consistently, but there will be impacts as a result.”
Today, she said, those impacts were at the Canyons Village side of the resort where “lift availability was limited.”
The decision to limit lift tickets, Huey said, was “to prioritize the experience of our valued pass holders.”
She said the priority is to open safely, assessing terrain as bigger storms roll through.
“We will continue to open terrain despite the union’s actions,” she said, explaining the priority will be the most popular beginner and intermediate areas.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Park City ski patrollers officially go on strike, citing unfair labor practices and marking the latest chapter in the union’s negotiations with Park City Mountain and its owner, Vail Resorts on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024.
What the union is seeking
Since before the union’s previous contract expired in April, the union has asked that ski patrol members receive a starting pay of $23 an hour rather than $21 — with increased compensation for more experienced safety workers and patrollers, based on their skills. The union also is requesting a benefits package option to take a health care stipend for the months patrollers and safety workers are employed, so they do not need to switch providers every six months.
According to Graves, the union wants the new minimum bump to be applied to everyone’s wages.
She said the old contract left people with 15 or 20 years of experience making close to what people in their fifth or sixth year make.
“You kind of hit a plateau in wages,” she said, “and so we would really like to see the company incentivize people who are more tenured on patrol.”
The proposed contract would mean that people with advanced skills — team members like emergency medical technicians and avalanche danger mitigators — would see larger increases than they now do for their certifications and capabilities.
She said the union also is seeking cost-of-living adjustments.
“One of the huge things in this negotiations process is seeing our wages rise in line with inflation, or at least close to in line with inflation,” she said. “We are also asking for some flex time and holiday pay.”
If the company agreed with it all, Graves said, it would mean a 26.5% increase in wages and benefits and equate to $979,000. If it agreed to everything but holiday pay, the contract would represent a little over a 20% increase in wages, a total of $747,000.
In the past fiscal year, the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2024, Vail Resorts reported a net income of $230.4 million — down from the $268.1 million in net income the year before, according to a news release from the company. The company’s net income outlook for fiscal 2025, the 12 months that began on Oct. 1, 2024, the estimate is between $224 million and $300 million.
At nearby Deer Valley Resort, the union said, starting pay for ski patrol members is $23.50 an hour. At Powder Mountain, officials said it’s $26 and, at Wasatch Peaks, it’s $24.
Huey, at Vail Resorts, said the average entry-level wage is $22.40 an hour. She said average patrol wages at Park City are $25 an hour, and that experienced patrollers make an average of 35% more than that.
“Our wages and benefits are attracting strong talent,” Huey said. “Across all our mountain resorts, we had nearly 3,000 applicants for only 300 open patrol roles.”
According to a statement Friday by Walsh, Park City Mountain has increased its patrols’ wages by 50% over the past four seasons. “The current Park City Mountain patrol proposal increases wages another 4% for the majority of patrollers and provides $1,600 per patroller for equipment.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Gabby Farrell joins colleagues as they officially go on strike, citing unfair labor practices and marking the latest chapter in the union’s negotiations with Park City Mountain and its owner, Vail Resorts on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024.
Negotiations so far
As the strike began last week, Walsh said Vail Resorts had reached agreements with the union on 24 of its 27 contract terms.
Graves said there were tentative agreements on many terms, though “the ink is not dry.” The unresolved issues are wages and benefits. She emphasized that the union is not on an economic strike but rather an unfair labor practice strike.
In the union’s latest complaint, which according to Graves was filed Saturday with the National Labor Relations Board, a lawyer with Vail Resorts sent union members threats of retaliation — deactivating season passes for the striking workers and their dependents, evicting people living in employee housing and threatening to cut health benefits if the strike lasts longer than two pay periods and threatening to cancel child care the mountain provides to its employees.
Graves said union members and their dependents’ passes were turned off Monday.
Huey, when asked about the complaints, said Monday, “we are confident we have always bargained in good faith, complied with all labor laws, and demonstrated our great respect for our patrollers, which is reflected by the fact that we have reached tentative agreements on 24 of the 27 contract items the union has opened over the past nine months and through our significant investments in patrol wages. We look forward to resuming mediation.”
In explaining the reasoning for the strike, a Friday news release from Communications Workers of America, the group that represents the union, said Vail Resorts “forced this work stoppage by bargaining in bad faith and repeatedly violating the National Labor Relations Act.”
What’s next
As of Monday afternoon, Graves said Vail Resorts was once again meeting with a mediator and the union.
Graves said there is no sign of when the dispute will be resolved. In the meantime, the union’s GoFundMe campaign has raised over $124,000, and she said the workers have held other fundraising events as well.
“We have a pretty wonderful internal strike fund right now,” she said, “and we hope that that can provide some financial relief to our membership.”
If the strike lasts longer than 15 days, union members also get $300 a week from the Communications Workers of America, “which is obviously not enough to survive on, by any means,” Graves said, “but it’s better than nothing.”
She added that, while a few people have crossed the picket line, the union has seen a lot of support from the Park City and wider ski patrol communities.
“We really want to emphasize that these struggles go far beyond our 200 members,” Graves said. “We would love to see everyone who’s a mountain worker or in the outdoor industry getting paid adequately, because we tend to live in places that are much more expensive than the national average.”
