Wave of Western Ski Patrols Move to Unionize

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SAM Magazine–Keystone, Colo., March 11, 2024—Ski patrollers at Keystone Resort are the latest in a string of western resort patrol departments moving to unionize this winter. At least four other resorts have pending votes to form a patrol union as well.

Ninety-three Keystone patrollers filed a petition March 1 with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a union election, according to the Colorado Sun’s Jason Blevins. This is the Keystone patrollers’ second attempt to unionize in the last three years; an effort in 2021 failed by one vote.

Should this upcoming vote be successful, the Keystone Ski Patrol Union will be recognized within the Communication Workers of America (CWA) subdivision Local 7781.

Keystone Resort is owned and operated by Vail Resorts. Patrollers at the company’s Breckenridge and Crested Butte resorts in Colorado and Park City Mountain Resort in Utah are already unionized.

A few days prior to the Keystone petition, 70 percent of ski patrollers at Alterra-owned Palisades Tahoe submitted a petition on Feb. 26 to the NLRB to hold a union election. If that vote is successful, the Palisades Tahoe Professional Patrol Association would also join CWA Local 7781 and would reportedly be the first unionized ski patrol in California.

Patrollers at fellow Alterra-owned resort Solitude Mountain, Utah, submitted a unionization petition Feb. 14. The patrollers asked the resort to voluntarily recognize the union, but resort officials confirmed to the Salt Lake Tribune that they had rejected that request, requiring patrollers to vote on the formation of a union at an NLRB-scheduled election.

Earlier that same week, 77 percent of patrollers at Whitefish Mountain Resort, Mont., also petitioned the NLRB to unionize. A resort spokesperson told the Flat Head Beacon at the time that officials were “just beginning to process what it may mean for the resort.”

A petition requires the signatures of at least 30 percent of eligible staff to be recognized, although the process to bring the decision to a vote can be slow. Patrollers at Powdr-owned Eldora Mountain, Colo., filed a petition in October, ahead of the ski season, but are reportedly still waiting for the NLRB to schedule an election.

A change in labor law this December will speed up the timeline for forming a union chapter. Previously, after a group of employees filed a petition to unionize, their employer had a window of approximately two months to prepare before the NLRB would call a hearing regarding a unionization vote. That window has now been shortened to 10 days or less.

Patrollers from the five resorts have cited similar reasons for unionizing: better pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions chief among them.

They also see evidence that collective bargaining is working. “We’ve seen quite a few other patrols get into the union … and it’s pretty apparent that patrollers with the same amount of tenure and training are receiving better compensation at those other resorts,” Cory Cavegan, a four-year patroller at Keystone, told the Colorado Sun.