Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Park City ski patrol union has authorized a strike after negotiations with Vail Resorts stalled.
- The union seeks wage increases and better pay parity, citing other resorts' higher wages.
- Negotiations continue next week, with a potential holiday strike if no agreement is reached.
PARK CITY — The ski patrol union in Park City announced Saturday that they have authorized a strike, following a contentious negotiation session with Vail Resorts on Thursday.
The bargaining unit had an informational meeting Wednesday night and put the vote out, sixth-season patroller Margaux Klingensmith and business manager for the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association told KSL.com. Members had 48 hours to vote, closing at 8 p.m. Friday. Klingensmith said 98.5% of the unit participated, and 100% of them voted in favor of strike authorization.
"Essentially, a strike authorization vote is putting it to the unit whether they are willing to go on strike, and that basically passes the power of deciding when that strike happens, and if that strike happens, to the board," she said. "It doesn't mean we are going on strike, but if the company forces us down that path, our unit is willing to stand together to secure a fair contract."
The bargaining began after the group's contract expired on the last day of April.
"Over the summer, we were able to tentatively agree to most of the articles in our contract," Klingensmith said. "We felt that things really took a shift when we proposed our economic proposal and didn't hear back for almost two months."
Thursday negotiations ended early
On Thursday night, the union met with Vail negotiators, but the discussions ended early. Vail Resorts Vice President Deirdra Walsh told the Park Record, "The union walked out of negotiations when we were prepared to discuss their wage proposal. We were ready to continue conversations, and it was disappointing to see them refuse any dialogue and leave the discussion abruptly."
Klingensmith indicated this was a mischaracterization of what happened. "We gave the company our new economic proposal (on Thursday), and I explained how our unit is feeling," she said.
Klingensmith said the union gave the company the weekend to look over the offer, which was around 15 pages, and told them, "We are looking forward to bargaining our economic package on Monday, once they've had time to look over the offer in detail."
Regular picketing demonstrations have taken place across the mountain town since late November. On Thursday, around 120 people showed up outside the "tiny conference room," according to Klingensmith, to show Vail Resorts "our elected negotiators speak for our unit ... because we trust them to speak for us, and they've been doing a great job."
She said it was important to show solidarity because this is "something the company has questioned in the room."
The dialog in the room, according to the business manager, was "on the respectful side. Unfortunately, the proposals are not."
Wages still a sticking point
"Right now, we are at $21 an hour starting wage," Klingensmith said, "and that is falling behind a lot of the other resorts in the area."
The union claims the nearby Deer Valley Resort is raising their starting pay to $23.50 an hour, and Powder Mountain is paying $26. These figures could not be immediately verified independently.
Union representatives say that Vail Resorts "has passed virtually the same economic counterproposal back three times without substantial revisions" since their initial compensation proposal on Sept. 20, despite the ski patrol group "making significant concessions."
In previous statements, the union's lead negotiator, 17-year patrol veteran Seth Dromgoole, said the group is proposing an increase to $23 per hour.
Wage parity, which would ensure unionized patrols are included in Vail Resort's future pay increases, was a "critical protection we had in our last contract," Klingensmith said, but is not in the company's current counteroffer.
"Our really big push for our unit is decompressing the pay scale among our more tenured patrollers," Klingensmith said. "We want to make sure that our tenured patrollers are compensated for their skills, knowledge and experience, and that includes maintaining an industry-leading education and training package."
She hopes that a strong wage structure in the future will allow patrollers to "make this a career."
Holiday strike a possibility
"I want to be very clear that no one in our unit wants to go on strike," Klingensmith said. "We all want to keep working. We all want to keep working with a contract, though, and we want to work with a contract that we can feel good about accepting. Right now, we're not close to that on our economic package."
Walsh previously said in a press release that "there are no impacts — and will be no impacts — to our mountain operations."
Negotiation sessions are scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, where the company will address the union counterproposal given at the last meeting.
Ski patrollers on the mountain are hopeful the sessions next week are productive, Klingensmith said, but are beginning to prepare "for the situation where the company doesn't come to the table and we're first forced to further action." They are starting a fund to pay members' essential bills "in the event of a strike."
Vail Resorts was not immediately available for comment.
