Goar hopeful on reaching agreement while ski patrol contract negotiations drudge on

The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association recently launched a "solidarity fund," which has brought in over $15,000 in a couple of days. Photo: Patrick Murphy

PARK CITY, Utah — Talks between Vail Resorts, which owns Park City Mountain, and the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association (PCPSPA) are ongoing after the union rejected the company’s last proposal that offered a starting wage of $15 an hour.

Park City Mountain Chief Operating Officer (COO) Mike Goar recently spoke with TownLift about the discussions.

“I have an appreciation and understanding of what it takes to be a patroller and got a great deal of appreciation for the hard work and the skill set it takes,” Goar said. He started his career on the mountains as a ski patroller.

“We had provided a proposal that we feel and still feel is an excellent proposal with enhancements to wages across the board, equipment allowances, opportunity to gain increased pay through incentives, enhanced training, access to bonuses that we provide all of our employees.”

The COO said starting wages have been the main sticking point in the negotiations. He said the strong focus on pay is “out of context” without considering the year-over-year increase and the incentives provided to employees.

Due to the lack of an active contract, company policy is following the last expired contract. Therefore, current patrollers are being paid $13.25 an hour.

“Once they get some of the skills, additional skills, where they can do more as a professional patroller, they automatically get staged into the next level in patrol in their second year, and each year after that, and every year, they have opportunity to increase their pay, many of those are automatic,” Goar said.

He said two of Vail Resorts’ other unionized patrollers recently ratified contracts “that look very similar to the agreement that was rejected here.” Breckenridge ski patrol approved their new contract with “near-unanimous” support.

On the topic of wage incentives, PCPSPA Business Manager Patrick Murphy said “we do have those in place, which help, but they still come up short in getting our experienced patrollers up to a wage that they deserve.”

“Those incentives look like, 50 cents for an EMT, and then 75 cents for an advanced EMT,” Murphy said. Dog handlers get a bonus of 65 cents. Once those certifications are complete, the permanent wage increases are automatic.

Murphy said the incentive policy has been in the last two contracts with Vail. “Those incentives are largely unchanged in this contract, any major change that has been proposed to the incentive pay is accident investigators getting 75 cents an hour all the time, rather than $2 an hour ad hoc when they’re working on an accident investigation.”

He said the most notable change in the recently rejected contract is that you need fewer avalanche routes to get the wage incentive for avalanche route leaders.

“They still aren’t getting our experienced patrollers up above 20 like they should be.”

Murphy said it isn’t fair for the union to have the resort-wide starting wage, which is $15 an hour, given the dangers of ski patrol.

The union is preparing to bring the company a new proposal with a new wage structure in their next bargaining session. Murphy would not provide exact details.

The group recently launched a solidarity fund, which has brought in over $20,000 in a few days. They’re calling it a “safety net in the event we are forced into more significant action and we are not receiving paychecks… It is only utilized to help patrollers pay for basic needs such as rent and food in our last/worst case scenario.”