Bad PR Week for Vail Resorts

**old goat** · 03-29-2016, 08:17 AM

Back in the 70's I worked in a steel mill for minimum wage--$2.96/hr. That's 18/hr corrected for inflation. And people think $15/hr is absurdly high. And why should the government interfere in the "free market"--because when people aren't paid a living wage the taxpayers pick up the bill for their health care (medicaid), food stamps, general assistance, subsidized child care, low income tax credits, etc, etc, plus the rest of us have to pay higher taxes to make up for the taxes poverty level workers aren't paying. In other words, a low minimum wage is an indirect subsidy paid by the government to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. In this way and many others the rich are the biggest beneficiaries of welfare in this country.
Another reason to pay adequate wages--the Tahoe area and I assume a lot of other resort areas are actually having a hard time hiring for low level jobs like lift ops because they can't afford rent. There aren't a lot of people lined up to take that lift op's job. Around here the resorts count on rich South American kids who can afford to ski bum on Daddy's dime.

**jvskinn** · 03-29-2016, 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by old goat

Back in the 70's I worked in a steel mill for minimum wage--$2.96/hr. That's 18/hr corrected for inflation. And people think $15/hr is absurdly high. And why should the government interfere in the "free market"--because when people aren't paid a living wage the taxpayers pick up the bill for their health care (medicaid), food stamps, general assistance, subsidized child care, low income tax credits, etc, etc, plus the rest of us have to pay higher taxes to make up for the taxes poverty level workers aren't paying. In other words, a low minimum wage is an indirect subsidy paid by the government to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. In this way and many others the rich are the biggest beneficiaries of welfare in this country.
Another reason to pay adequate wages--the Tahoe area and I assume a lot of other resort areas are actually having a hard time hiring for low level jobs like lift ops because they can't afford rent. There aren't a lot of people lined up to take that lift op's job. Around here the resorts count on rich South American kids who can afford to ski bum on Daddy's dime.

A quick Google search shows modern American steel workers get paid $48k per year average, more than what you were making corrected for inflation. Obviously the free market does value that work and pays them a living wage.

EDIT: Just re-read this and it seemed kind of dickish. Sorry, not trying to be a dick, and I'm the last person you'll see defending VR. I just think the comparison to steel workers was weak, and actually supports the idea of free market wages being fair.

**FairWages** · 03-29-2016, 10:13 AM

Interesting discussion regarding the "free market" If the US government issued a single permit to 1 company to run all the gas stations in the Vail Valley and these stations charged double what gas stations in Denver and Aspen charged (while paying gas station workers less), would you call that a "free market" for gas?

The USFS issues multiple permits for snow mobile operators, river rafting companies, etc. to operate on the same National Forest land, so why not multiple ski schools like at big resorts in many other countries? Often, in Europe, the lift operating company runs ski patrol, but NOT any of the ski schools or on mountain restaurants. I realize that this would be a big policy shift for the USFS to adopt a similar model, but there is no reason that this couldn't be done over time.

In the 70s, Instructors at Vail earned about half the lesson revenue, but that is no longer the case. Econ 101 says that a monopolist will maximize profit by charging a price higher than the free market price (that reduces total volume). A monopsonist employer will hire fewer workers at a lower wage than a free market economy for employment. Customers pay over $200/hr for a half day private lesson (and around $150/hr for a full day) at Vail and Beaver Creek while many of the instructors giving those lessons are being paid under $20/hr (while providing their own ski equipment). An economics teacher would predict that in a free market, this gap would close over time as free market capitalists would open their own businesses to be able to profit from this huge gap by hiring more and more ski instructors at above the current pay rate and offering more and more lessons at below the current lesson rate (and still turn a nice profit like Aspen does). Instead, THIS GAP HAS INCREASED OVER TIME BECAUSE VAIL HAS GOTTEN MORE AND MORE AGGRESSIVE AT EXPLOITING THEIR LOCAL MONOPOLY.

Yes, there are people who are treated more unfairly than ski instructors, but multiple wrongs don't make a right. The Term Special Use Permits that Vail has to run many of their resorts don't last forever (and can be modified/terminated by the USFS to serve the public interest). Just like Vail Resorts has showed others the door when their lease deals allowed them to do so, the USFS could show Vail Resorts the door as well.

**Elkhound Odin** · 03-29-2016, 10:31 AM

oh, cry me river. Your "job" is completely temporary and voluntary. You play outdoors in the snow, teaching other people how to play in the snow. You choose to do this and you know there are plenty of people that will take those horrible work conditions if you leave. Why don't you get all your griping instructor buddies to go on strike and see how that will work out for you. If you still have a job and manage to get an increase in wages, then watch how many people come banging on the doors to get a piece of that action. Then you'll have to compete against a larger group of more qualified people for those horrible conditions.

**Benny Profane** · 03-29-2016, 10:35 AM

Taos charges 150 for five mornings of instruction with the same dude, and they throw in Sunday if you get there early. They're probably better than anything Vail can come up with, and it's definitely a cooler mountain with much cooler employees.

If you're paying that much for a lesson, well, you know, there's a sucker born every minute, I guess. And, the customer isn't the only sucker, it seems.

**old goat** · 03-29-2016, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by jvskinn

A quick Google search shows modern American steel workers get paid $48k per year average, more than what you were making corrected for inflation. Obviously the free market does value that work and pays them a living wage.

EDIT: Just re-read this and it seemed kind of dickish. Sorry, not trying to be a dick, and I'm the last person you'll see defending VR. I just think the comparison to steel workers was weak, and actually supports the idea of free market wages being fair.

which is $23/week, a little above my minimum wage in 2016 dollars, and that's for all job categories and all years of experience. I'm pretty sure guys they hire off the street to shovel coal dust up off the floor (my job) aren't making $18. And no, your reply did not seem at all dickish to me, not by general standards and most definitely not by TGR standards. (On this forum a dickish response generally includes the words "dick" and "mouth".)

Elkhound--I get it that people don't think of ski instructors as underpaid peons--it seems like a glamorous job (anyone who has spent a day picking a half dozen 3-4 year olds up off the snow and dealing with it when they pee their pants knows it isn't). It is also a crucial job if the ski industry is to survive in the long run, and a job whose wages are kept artificially low by the fact that the resorts forbid outside instructors from working on their slopes. In most industries that kind of vertical monopoly is not allowed. A market is only "free" when management, workers, and customers all have the same information and the same degree of bargaining power. That is certainly not true in the ski industry, where the workers have little bargaining power, except to not work in the ski industry, and where the company deals with it by cutting back on customer service--money holds, delays opening after storms, etc (I'm talking about you KSL.)

I hear that a lot when people complain about working conditions or pay. "If you don't like it find another job." "Nobdy is making you work there." Anyone who makes that argument is living in a bubble that matters, as opposed to a bubble based on what restaurant you go to.

**FairWages** · 03-29-2016, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by Benny Profane

Taos charges 150 for five mornings of instruction with the same dude, and they throw in Sunday if you get there early. They're probably better than anything Vail can come up with, and it's definitely a cooler mountain with much cooler employees.

If you're paying that much for a lesson, well, you know, there's a sucker born every minute, I guess. And, the customer isn't the only sucker, it seems.

Is a sucker born every minute your "Econ 101" explanation of the price difference? I love it how guys can refer to academic theories, and then give an example that disproves what they are arguing. Making it clearer for you, if Beaver Creek was run by the owners of Taos instead of Vail, and offered the same lesson prices/quality that you say Taos does, don't you think this would cut into Vail's ski school business?

**Rednaked** · 03-29-2016, 11:15 AM

I think all of you douchebags should boycott the mothership. No Epic pass, no early/late season laps at Abasin, no 500+ inches of kickass Kirkwood, just skip the trip to the truck stop and head to rarely skied, completely uncrowded Jackson Hole, then maybe, just maybe, I won't have to wait behind your sorry asses in the damn lift line

**Shredhead** · 03-29-2016, 11:32 AM

So how come you couldn't get the part timers to sign cards?

Sounds like the CWA did a piss poor job organizing and that's even before they have to show them the M2.
Once they show them the M2, the unions financial disclosure, you'd be totally hosed.

**DJSapp** · 03-29-2016, 11:41 AM

I love hearing about the wage crying. It just makes me think, just what in the hell are you doing with your life. You are voluntary moving to a place that is expensive as shit to work a job that pays minimum wage, and then you're surprised that you're broke? Are you THAT stupid?

And yes, I did nearly go down this road 12 years ago. A maggot had a position open with the city of Avon for an engineer. I flew to CO and interviewed, check out housing prices, etc. Got an offer and ended up turning it down. Price of living was too high vs. what they were going to pay, and advancement meant waiting for the senior engineer to retire. It's called doing your homework and making a tough decision.

**Benny Profane** · 03-29-2016, 12:19 PM

Originally Posted by FairWages

Is a sucker born every minute your "Econ 101" explanation of the price difference? I love it how guys can refer to academic theories, and then give an example that disproves what they are arguing. Making it clearer for you, if Beaver Creek was run by the owners of Taos instead of Vail, and offered the same lesson prices/quality that you say Taos does, don't you think this would cut into Vail's ski school business?

As a matter of fact, after this season, I've sworn off Vail corp. properties in the future. Fuck that Epic pass. Every mountain they touch, excepting ABasin, just sucks with enormous crowds and six packs with those fucking conveyer belts. Even BC, which used to be the uncrowded alternative to Vail and Summit, is a total shit show on a powder weekday. Drive by Vail, and they're still building crap in that valley in whatever space is left, cranes everywhere. Mo customers, mo customers. Fucking Breck, don't get me started, and still major hotels going up at the base. But, that's what people love, I guess, so. Let them have it. I'm outa here. Next year, the MC pass and Europe, year after that, a small town in Idaho. Fuck Vail.

**Rednaked** · 03-29-2016, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Benny Profane

....year after that, a small town in Idaho. ..

McCall?

**Benny Profane** · 03-29-2016, 01:05 PM

Driggs

**Shredhead** · 03-29-2016, 01:09 PM

My condolences to our Teton Valley brethren.

**FairWages** · 03-29-2016, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by DJSapp

I love hearing about the wage crying. It just makes me think, just what in the hell are you doing with your life. You are voluntary moving to a place that is expensive as shit to work a job that pays minimum wage, and then you're surprised that you're broke? Are you THAT stupid?

And yes, I did nearly go down this road 12 years ago. A maggot had a position open with the city of Avon for an engineer. I flew to CO and interviewed, check out housing prices, etc. Got an offer and ended up turning it down. Price of living was too high vs. what they were going to pay, and advancement meant waiting for the senior engineer to retire. It's called doing your homework and making a tough decision.

Your approach is certainly a valid and prudent one- its called playing within the current system (even if the system is broken).

My approach is to try to fix the system. I realize that this will take much more work than your approach, but I am not stupid (or broke as I have made money outside ski instructing). I think giving the lift operator a monopoly on the ski school is a bad system that many other countries have wisely chosen not to adopt. The governments decision to have a single ski school concessionaire on public land has caused long time instructors to be treated less and less fairly as each year passes, provides little opportunity for younger individuals to make a living going forward in ski instruction and has lead to resort operators charging crazy high prices to the skiing public. The last part is essential for the way I feel. If the public wasn't willing to pay professional prices for ski lessons, then I wouldn't feel that instructors were entitled to professional wages. But, at least at Vail, BC, Breckenridge, Jackson Hole, and a number of other ski areas, the public is being charged top dollar and the ski instructors providing those lessons should receive a fair % of this revenue.

This issue affects more than ski instructors and the lesson taking public. Imagine if Vail Valley ski instructors were still paid close to half the revenues they generated. This could lead to more mountain residents going into ski instruction and fewer into other professions like engineering. This might lead to a bit higher pay for city of Avon engineers. Maybe not much of a difference, but with over 2,000 ski instructors working in the Vail Valley, a significant raise in their pay could have positive economic effects for many Vail Valley businesses that instructors frequent.

Here are what some instructors have had to say:

Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: Bobby Murphy (@bobbymurf) is now following you on Twitter!

...when I started with the ski school the instructor made 1/2 of the cost of a private lesson. Of course that was a different day and age. That was a time when the instructor had a future and a clear path of how to get there. Wages were based on certification and you could achieve full cert for not too much money in a year and 1/2. Today unions are dying and most company's are cutting benefits and pay any way they can. Our only recourse is to give them all the grief we can muster. You are to be commended for your efforts. Keep it up! If management has its way we will be asked to do it on a voluntary basis soon.

Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 11:52 PM
Subject: great call

... I love this job, and progressing myself in the name of a profession I both love and take pride in, but I have to work a night job for 20-30 hours weekly throughout the season, and am struggling to make ends meet... I am a second-year children's ski instructor and when I consider the idea of raising a family with this job, it just doesn't seem possible...

**Benny Profane** · 03-29-2016, 01:27 PM

Originally Posted by Shredhead

My condolences to our Teton Valley brethren.

Don't worry. They'll never find Keyser Soze.

**ak_powder_monkey** · 03-29-2016, 04:01 PM

There are plenty of better paying jobs that don't require you to miss powder days to baby sit kids. Just saying.

**Lindahl** · 03-29-2016, 05:34 PM

Ssshhh... let the sheeple make those mistakes so the good jobs are left for us. Let them continue thinking they're "living the dream bro"

**californiagrown** · 03-29-2016, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by FairWages

Your approach is certainly a valid and prudent one- its called playing within the current system (even if the system is broken).

My approach is to try to fix the system. I realize that this will take much more work than your approach, but I am not stupid (or broke as I have made money outside ski instructing). I think giving the lift operator a monopoly on the ski school is a bad system that many other countries have wisely chosen not to adopt. The governments decision to have a single ski school concessionaire on public land has caused long time instructors to be treated less and less fairly as each year passes, provides little opportunity for younger individuals to make a living going forward in ski instruction and has lead to resort operators charging crazy high prices to the skiing public. The last part is essential for the way I feel. If the public wasn't willing to pay professional prices for ski lessons, then I wouldn't feel that instructors were entitled to professional wages. But, at least at Vail, BC, Breckenridge, Jackson Hole, and a number of other ski areas, the public is being charged top dollar and the ski instructors providing those lessons should receive a fair % of this revenue.

This issue affects more than ski instructors and the lesson taking public. Imagine if Vail Valley ski instructors were still paid close to half the revenues they generated. This could lead to more mountain residents going into ski instruction and fewer into other professions like engineering. This might lead to a bit higher pay for city of Avon engineers. Maybe not much of a difference, but with over 2,000 ski instructors working in the Vail Valley, a significant raise in their pay could have positive economic effects for many Vail Valley businesses that instructors frequent.

Here are what some instructors have had to say:

Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: Bobby Murphy (@bobbymurf) is now following you on Twitter!

...when I started with the ski school the instructor made 1/2 of the cost of a private lesson. Of course that was a different day and age. That was a time when the instructor had a future and a clear path of how to get there. Wages were based on certification and you could achieve full cert for not too much money in a year and 1/2. Today unions are dying and most company's are cutting benefits and pay any way they can. Our only recourse is to give them all the grief we can muster. You are to be commended for your efforts. Keep it up! If management has its way we will be asked to do it on a voluntary basis soon.

Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 11:52 PM
Subject: great call

... I love this job, and progressing myself in the name of a profession I both love and take pride in, but I have to work a night job for 20-30 hours weekly throughout the season, and am struggling to make ends meet... I am a second-year children's ski instructor and when I consider the idea of raising a family with this job, it just doesn't seem possible...

ISooooo let me get this straight... some guy thinks that he should be making enough money after 8 months in a job to raise a family, when that job requires at the most 1.5 years of training? DaFuq?

What other profession can you make a decent wage in after only 8 months on the job, and after 1.5 years you have reached the top level of certification/licensure?

Sounds like more people thinking the world owes them something instead of working their tails off, making hard choices and sacrificing for a better future. They just think their present should be perfect without any effort.

**snoqpass** · 03-29-2016, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by californiagrown

ISooooo let me get this straight... some guy thinks that he should be making enough money after 8 months in a job to raise a family, when that job requires at the most 1.5 years of training? DaFuq?

What other profession can you make a decent wage in after only 8 months on the job, and after 1.5 years you have reached the top level of certification/licensure?

Sounds like more people thinking the world owes them something instead of working their tails off, making hard choices and sacrificing for a better future. They just think their present should be perfect without any effort.

That would be the short version plus the OP has zero comprehension of special use permits issued by the USFS

**DJSapp** · 03-29-2016, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by californiagrown

ISooooo let me get this straight... some guy thinks that he should be making enough money after 8 months in a job to raise a family, when that job requires at the most 1.5 years of training? DaFuq?

What other profession can you make a decent wage in after only 8 months on the job, and after 1.5 years you have reached the top level of certification/licensure?

Sounds like more people thinking the world owes them something instead of working their tails off, making hard choices and sacrificing for a better future. They just think their present should be perfect without any effort.

The 'everyone gets a trophy' generation is now hitting their late 20's and are waking up to reality.

**Rednaked** · 03-29-2016, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by DJSapp

The 'everyone gets a trophy' generation is now hitting their late 20's and are waking up.......

in their parents basement

**snoqpass** · 03-29-2016, 06:40 PM

Here's an idea, CNL properties has a few resorts for sale the OP and his instructor friends could buy one , get a SUP and have a go at it

**stevesmith7** · 03-29-2016, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by old goat

Back in the 70's I worked in a steel mill for minimum wage--$2.96/hr. That's 18/hr corrected for inflation. And people think $15/hr is absurdly high.

Not according to this.

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**stevesmith7** · 03-29-2016, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by Benny Profane

As a matter of fact, after this season, I've sworn off Vail corp. properties in the future. Fuck that Epic pass. Every mountain they touch, excepting ABasin, just sucks with enormous crowds and six packs with those fucking conveyer belts. Even BC, which used to be the uncrowded alternative to Vail and Summit, is a total shit show on a powder weekday. Drive by Vail, and they're still building crap in that valley in whatever space is left, cranes everywhere. Mo customers, mo customers. Fucking Breck, don't get me started, and still major hotels going up at the base. But, that's what people love, I guess, so. Let them have it. I'm outa here. Next year, the MC pass and Europe, year after that, a small town in Idaho. Fuck Vail.

Totally agree.