Vail Resorts, ski patrol union remain in a deadlock after latest contract talk

PARK CITY — After another unsuccessful negotiation session Wednesday night, Vail Resorts and the Park City ski patrol union will continue their standoff, despite mounting public pressure.

The counteroffer from Vail in the last meeting “includes no improvement to benefits and less than 0.5% wage increase across the unit,” according to a statement sent by the union Wednesday. “Most patrollers would see no difference in their wages and those affected would only see a minimal wage increase.”

Union reps say Vail Resorts canceled a planned contract talk on Monday, and hoped “the extra time will allow them to come prepared with a more reasonable counter offer.”

The contract between both parties expired the last day of April, and there have been 21 meetings to form a new contract since then, according to union representatives. Patrollers at Park City Mountain, which opened for the ski season Nov. 22, are operating under tentatively agreed upon clauses while the rest of the agreement is worked on.

“Every unreasonable counter offer makes it increasingly difficult to continue working without a contract and draws out a process we wanted to have completed before we started working this season,” Kate Lips, union president and seventh year patroller at Park City Mountain, said in a prepared statement.

On their days off, patrollers and supporters have hosted “practice pickets,” occupying all corners of the intersection at Park Avenue and Empire Avenue on Nov. 23, and holding signs in the roundabout at the entrance to Canyons Village Resort on Saturday.

A petition circulating since Nov. 27 has garnered over 2,200 signatures in support of the union’s proposed wage increases, a request Vail has been unwilling to meet, according to the union statement.

Seth Dromgoole, who has been patrolling at Park City for 17 years and is the union’s lead negotiator, said the group’s proposal to increase the starting wage from $21 to $23 per hour “is rooted in economic data and market comparisons of other ski patrols.”

In a prepared statement last week, Vice President of Park City Mountain Deirdra Walsh said, “Over the past three years, the average wage for ski patrollers across the company, including at Park City Mountain, has increased substantially — far outpacing the rate of wage inflation — resulting in very competitive wages.”

The union continues to fight for the inclusion of a “wage parity clause,” which was taken out of their contract, business manager and sixth-season patroller Margaux Klingensmith told KSL.com on Nov. 23. Without that clause, Vail wouldn’t have to include unionized patrols in future increases, Klingensmith said.

According to Walsh, Vail Resorts leads the industry “in terms of benefits, perks, training, and the equipment compensation we provide to our ski patrollers.”

Walsh said, in spite of the stalled negotiations, “there are no impacts — and will be no impacts — to our mountain operations.“