Park City Mountain Ski Patrol Strike Over

A nearly two-week long strike by ski patrollers at the largest ski area in the USA, Park City Mountain in Utah, has been concluded with the resort’s owners, Vail Resorts, apparently agreeing to all of the ski patrol union’s demands.

The strike began after a nine-month failure to agree a minimum-pay rise from $21 to $23 per hour. Although some were critical of strikers, Vail resorts got a lot of negative media coverage from vacationers in-case paying tens of thousands of dollars for ski holidays which involved a lot of queuing and very little skiing because of the strike.

Besides the $2 per hour basic pay increase the agreement also gives workers expanded parental leave polices and educational opportunities.

“This contract is more than just a win for our team—it’s a groundbreaking success in the ski and mountain worker industry,” The Park City Mountain Professional Ski Patrollers Association, the lead negotiator for The Park City Mountain Professional Ski Patrollers Association, Seth Dromgoole, told  media.

Whether supportive of patrollers or not, the strike was widely blamed for only limited terrain being open at Park City, with a figure of 50 runs out of 250 open for the key holiday period. This led to queues of up to three hours being reported and very crowded slopes, according to media reports.

In fact, Park City Mountain had only had about 50 of its runs open before the strike action due to very low early-season snowfall and limited snowmaking opportunities. Recent storms during the strike period have greatly improved the picture though and with the strike over, more than 200 trails are now open.

It’s currently unclear if the improved pay and conditions will be offered across Vail Resorts’ 40+ destinations.  Ski patrollers from other resorts in the group in some cases supported the park city Union, in others sent patrollers to try to do the job of striking patrollers.

Ironically part of the reason Park City patrollers said they needed higher pay to meet cost of living needs were spiraling housing and living costs in Park City, part driven by second home buying wealthy skiers from out of town.

“We look forward to welcoming back the Park City Mountain patrollers in the coming days and moving forward together as one team,” Bill Rock, president of Vail Resorts’ Mountain Division, said in a statement, adding, “We apologize to our guests who were impacted by this strike.”