Tom “Socko” Sokolowski has lived in Telluride for 54 years.
“But I’ve only been patrolling for 53 years,” the 80-year-old said after a day of picketing with his fellow ski patrollers in front of the quiet ski hill.
Jan. 1 marks day five of the ski patroller strike at the Telluride ski area, which the owner has closed in response to the strike. Neither the owner, Chuck Horning, nor the patrollers appear ready to restart stalled contract negotiations. The Telluride Ski and Golf company and the 78-member Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Union met nearly 20 times over several months, trying to hammer out new wages for a three-year contract that expired in August.
Telluride Ski and Golf, which has been owned by Southern California real estate investor Horning since 2005, in early December offered patrollers a new contract that increases the hourly pay of each patroller by $3.89 for a median wage of $30 with a range of pay from $23.50 an hour for first-years to $46 an hour for veterans.
The ski patroller union is seeking an increase of $7.78 an hour for a median wage of $35.09 with a wage range from $26 to $53 an hour. The patrollers argue they are asking for wages that allow them to better keep skiers safe by retaining veterans who don’t leave for higher paying jobs in the region.
“Mainly the reason we are pushing this hard is for the new guys, the new kids, you know,” Socko said. “We lost seven people over the summer. We were only able to get four qualified people hired back. We are losing experienced people. By my estimation it takes three years for those kids to get comfortable and then they are gone after five years. That’s really sad.”
In the early 1970s when Socko first joined the Telluride patrol, he earned $2.50 an hour. Punch that into an inflation calculator, he said, and that’s around $18.25 today.
“But back then we rented an entire house for $175 a month and beers at the bar were 35 cents. Now they are $16, $18,” he said.
Since the strike launched, the resort company has not reached out to patrollers with a new proposal.
“They don’t seem interested in communicating with us whatsoever,” union president and longtime patroller Graham Hoffman said.
Declines in lodging in Telluride as Crested Butte sees uptick
With the resort closed during what is typically one of the busiest weeks of the season, the flow of visitors is slowing.
The latest information from the Telluride Tourism Board shows lodging bookings in the last weeks of December are down 54% compared with last year. Lodging occupancy in Telluride and Mountain Village is 56% from late December into early January, compared with 72% during the same holiday stretch last season.
Telluride vacationers appear to be heading over to Crested Butte Mountain Resort and Monarch ski area.
“We are booked out through the New Year holiday. Everything that we had available has been booked by people coming up from Telluride,” said Doug Bittle, a manager at the slopeside Westwall Lodge in Mount Crested Butte.
Monarch ski area is offering free lift tickets to anyone with a ticket or season pass at Telluride.
“Colorado’s ski areas share a strong sense of community, and when guests and employees are impacted, we believe it’s important to step up and help keep people skiing and riding,” reads a statement from Chris Haggerty, the general manager at Monarch Mountain. “We’re happy to welcome Telluride guests and team members to Monarch for a great day on snow.”
The first people to take advantage of the Monarch offer was a group of seven visiting from Georgia.
“They were happy,” Monarch owner Bob Nicolls said. “Phone calls are coming in. Some people think our offer is not real.”
Making snow, but not turning lifts
Telluride Ski and Golf shut down Saturday with an online post that the closure was “a result of the ski patrol’s decision to strike.” On Tuesday, the resort posted online photos of ongoing snowmaking operations.
“We are actively developing and refining our safety plan to support a safe re-opening as soon as possible,” the Dec. 30 Instagram post reads.
The Uncompahgre National Forest issued a ski area permit to Telluride Ski and Golf that, like all ski area permits, requires operators to protect public health and safety. The permits allow operators a lot of leeway when it comes to opening and closing terrain based on safety considerations.
“Forest Service permits do not set minimum staffing levels or require specific employee certifications,” Daniel Malta, a spokesperson for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests, said in an email. “It is the operator’s responsibility to determine staffing needed to meet permit requirements and protect public safety.”
The walkout at Telluride could soon not be the only resort worker strike in North America. A strike is planned to start Friday at Le Massif de Charlevoix ski resort in Quebec after the owner of the resort ended contract negotiations with a union representing 300 workers at the 406-acre ski area that is a new partner with Alterra Mountain Co.’s Ikon Pass.
Can governments fill the wage gap?
Both a resort representative and ski patrollers told community leaders at merchant and council meetings in December that the gap between the company’s and the patrollers’ wage proposals was around $100,000 to $115,000.
The resort representative noted that the issue was larger than that gap because many of the resort’s 1,200 seasonal employees might also request similar wage bumps if the patroller proposal were accepted by the resort company.
The unionized ski patrollers told community leaders they are thinking about all resort workers in crafting their proposal for increased wages in San Miguel County, where the median price for a home is around $1.6 million and where health care costs are skyrocketing.
“It’s important to note they believe they will have to pay other departments and we believe they should,” ski patroller Katherine Devlin, the vice president of the patroller union, told the Mountain Village Town Council on Dec. 11.
As local businesses dependent on tourists endure declining visitation with the resort closed, there are calls for local governments to step in and help the resort operator bridge the gap with patrollers. Both the towns of Telluride and Mountain Village and San Miguel County on Monday issued a statement that, after consulting with labor attorneys, contributions are not allowed under labor laws.
“We recognize the strain and uncertainty this labor dispute places on local businesses, residents, employees, and guests,” read the joint statement, noting that staff from the three governments “are monitoring the situation and remain prepared to respond as appropriate, while continuing to urge a speedy and amicable resolution to contract negotiations.”
