Park City ski patrollers strike at height of holiday season
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Nearly 200 ski patrollers and mountain safety personnel on Friday launched a strike at Park City Mountain in Utah to protest alleged unfair labor practices.
Why it matters: The post-Christmas job action threatened to disrupt operations at the largest ski resort in the U.S. during one of the busiest weeks of the season.
Driving the news: Patrollers and safety staff staged a walkout Friday morning to picket at the resort base in Park City.
- The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association, which represents the workers, has been negotiating with parent company Vail Resorts since April, when patrollers' most recent contact expired.
- Patrollers at Park City Mountain have been seeking a $2 per hour increase to their base wage of $21, plus higher pay for senior patrollers and better benefits, per local newspaper the Park Record.
What they're saying: "Vail Resorts forced this walkout by bargaining in bad faith and repeatedly violating the National Labor Relations Act," the union said in a Facebook post.
- "After yesterday's seven-hour negotiation session with a mediator present, the company continued to refuse to give a counteroffer on wages or benefits."
The other side: "We are deeply disappointed the patrol union has walked out of mediation and chosen drastic action that attempts to disrupt mountain operations in the middle of the holiday season," resort and Park City Mountain COO Deirdra Walsh said. "We invested significantly in patrol with their wages increasing more than 50% over the past four seasons."
State of play: Vail Resorts said it was bringing in personnel from other locations to staff the resort.
- "All planned terrain will be open thanks to experienced patrol leaders from Park City Mountain and our other mountain resorts," Walsh said in a statement.
- Only 14% of the resort's 7,300 skiable acres was open Friday due to low snowfall, per its website.
Context: Patrollers provide emergency medical, search-and-rescue and mountain maintenance services at U.S. ski resorts every year.
- The seasonal job is traditionally low-paid but can be dangerous, requiring patrollers to navigate treacherous terrain, often with an injured skier in tow, and mitigate avalanches with explosives.
- A 29-year-old patroller, Christian Helger, died in a chairlift accident at Park City Mountain last year. A state investigation concluded that the incident resulted from a "serious violation" of workplace safety, fining Vail Resorts $2,500.
Flashback: The number of workers who went on strike in 2023 surged 141% from the previous year, Axios reported in February.
