200 Ski Patrollers Strike at Park City: Safety Concerns Loom Amid Contract Dispute

Citing inadequate pay and benefits, nearly 200 ski patrollers and mountain safety workers at Park City Mountain Resort began an unfair labor strike on Friday, December 27th. The strike comes after nine months of stalled contract negotiations between the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association and Vail Resorts. 

Patrollers are demanding a base wage of $23/hour and a sliding pay scale for more experienced workers. For comparison, nearby Powder Mountain starts its ski patrollers at $26 an hour. Deer Valley recently raised its starting wage for patrollers to $23.50.

 Park City Mountain has assured visitors that it will remain open through the strike, bringing in patrol personnel from other resorts owned by Vail as a stopgap.

“We want to reassure skiers and snowboarders, our employees, and this community that despite the union’s actions, Park City Mountain will remain open with safety as our top priority,” said VP & COO of Park City Mountain Deirdra Walsh. “All planned terrain will be open thanks to experienced patrol leaders from Park City Mountain and our other mountain resorts.”

Workers who cross the picket-line-- known as strikebreakers or scabs-- lessen the effectiveness of a labor strike. The union is encouraging skiers who want to support patroller wages to boycott Vail-owned businesses in the meantime.

Union reps have also raised safety concerns about replacement staff in covering patrol duties given Park City's unique terrain and high-volume of visitors.

“We’re really frustrated to hear that the company has chosen to attempt to mitigate the effect of a strike rather than the symptoms of a strike,” said Margaux Klingensmith, a union business manager and sixth-year patroller. “If we saw the same time, effort, and money that they’ve put into bringing in scabs put into a fair contract for the people that have been dedicating years to become skilled professionals at Park City already, we wouldn’t have had to authorize a strike in the first place.”

While the parties have agreed on 24 of 27 items in the negotiation, one issue continues to be sticky-- wages.

While Klingensmith decried the wage increases suggested by Park City as "incredibly minimal," Walsh defended the company's practices.

“We have tremendous respect for our patrollers, which we have demonstrated by increasing patrol wages at Park City Mountain by more than 50 percent over the past four seasons to $25/hour on average,” said Walsh. “Experienced patrollers earn 35 percent more than entry-level patrol, and, under our proposal, returning patrollers will see a 4 percent wage increase this season plus a $1,600 equipment allowance.”

“We’ve been meeting but we just haven’t gotten any progress on wages or benefits,” Klingensmith said. “We had mediation yesterday, seven hours of it, they did not bring a proposal then. It has been two weeks since we have heard a counter proposal on wages or benefits from the company.”

For those looking to support their cause, the patroller's union has organized a strike fund on GoFundMe.