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Keystone Ski Patrol Union shares frustration with Vail Resorts’ counterproposal on skills-based pay for medical certifications

A ski patroller stands with a Keystone Resort avalanche dog on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024.
Katie Young/Keystone Resort

After formally being recognized as a union at the end of last ski season, the Keystone Ski Patrol Union is bargaining with Vail Resorts and upper management for a contract. 

According to Keystone ski patroller Jake Randall, the Keystone Ski Patrol Union formally started negotiations with Vail Resorts this past fall.

On Wednesday, Jan. 22, the Keystone Ski Patrol Union formally met with Vail Resorts to specifically discuss the company’s first counterproposal related to wages. Randall says that the union first presented its own wage proposal on Dec. 5 and did not hear back from management about a counterproposal until the Jan. 22 meeting.



Randall described the wage counterproposal meeting as frustrating for members of the ski patrol union. Most notably, Randall said Vail Resorts did not counter with pay increases that were substantial enough for its advanced medical-certified patrollers.

“The company declined to make a new wage category for patrollers with higher medical certifications,” Randall wrote in an email to Summit Daily News. “To justify this, the company spent (roughly) 1 hour debating the importance of providing several different medical procedures on the mountain. During this exchange, the company said as a general statement that they believe ski patrol should prioritize transporting patients rather than providing medical care.”



While the ski patrol union feels like Vail Resorts did not counter with a substantial pay increase for advanced patrollers, the Broomfield-based company reportedly did offer a new incentive category called “mountain complexity,” according to Randall. 

The union says that the category is similar to what the company offered Park City Ski Patrol, and the same category has also been extended to many of the company’s non-unionized patrols. The Keystone Ski Patrol Union believes that Vail Resorts and Keystone’s upper management team only offered the new incentive to ski patrollers at Keystone at the expense of other key wage categories. 

The union’s displeasure with what was discussed in the meeting resulted in the patrollers reaching a boiling point toward the end of last week. 

“We felt like we had to tell some of the membership and let them know what they are telling us in negotiations,” Randall said.

The Keystone Ski Patrol Union’s decision to relay the information they gleaned from the wage counterproposal meeting resulted in Keystone vice president and general manager Shannon Buhler sending an email to all of Keystone’s employees on Sunday, Jan. 26.

“Keystone Resort is not questioning, nor have we ever questioned, the need or value for patrollers to have advanced medical care skills,” Buhler stated in her email that was shared by the resort with Summit Daily News. “We recognize, appreciate, and are proud of the frontline care our patrollers provide to our guests, and our proposal includes individualized skills-based pay for medical certifications.”

In the email, Buhler states that resort officials did meet with the union to present the company’s counterproposal on wages and benefits. However, Buhler claims that since that meeting wrapped up, the union has shared inaccurate information on what occurred in that meeting.

“Since that meeting, the union has shared inaccurate information regarding that discussion and the skills-based pay the resort proposed,” Buhler wrote in the email. “Some of our team members have asked me questions and raised concerns about what they have read, so I want to make sure you have the facts.”

Buhler then went on to challenge several of the claims made by the union, countering with what the resort feels like are the facts of the current situation. The Keystone Ski Patrol Union read Buhler’s email and rebutted many of her statements in an email of their own on Monday, Jan. 27, claiming the email was misleading and inaccurate.

The union is scheduled to meet with the company for another bargaining session on Thursday night, Jan. 30. In that meeting, Randall was hopeful that the company would be willing to give the union an education-and-training counter proposal. 

“On Thursday the main goal of that is to hopefully receive an education-and-training counterproposal from the company,” Randall said, adding that the union doesn’t want to concede or gain wages without knowing more about the resort’s plans on training and education.

Keystone Resort maintains that ski patrollers are a very important part of the resort team.

“We have an enormous amount of respect for all our Keystone Resort employees, including our ski patrollers, who are an important part of our resort team and the Keystone experience,” Buhler said in her email. “We remain committed to a respectful and productive negotiation process aligned to our values and to reaching agreement.”  


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