Members of the Park City Mountain ski patrol in Utah were back at work Thursday after the resort agreed to raise their pay by $2 an hour, ending a 13-day strike that forced long wait times for ski lifts and frustrated hundreds of customers.
The new contract, which will stay in effect through 2027, gives entry-level ski patrollers and mountain safety employees a starting salary of $23 an hour, according to the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association, which represents 200 employees at the country's largest ski resort.
Experienced members of the ski patrol will earn an additional $4 an hour on average, the union said.
“The tentative agreement addresses both parties’ interests and will end the current strike, the resort and the union said Thursday in a joint statement. "Everyone looks forward to restoring normal resort operations.”
Members of the ski patrol conduct mountain safety operations, such as avalanche mitigation, and respond to medical emergencies.
The sides negotiated for eight months before the union began its strike on Dec. 27. During the strike, the resort operated at a limited capacity, upsetting hundreds of guests who traveled long distances with their families.
Minnesota resident Peter Nystrom said he spent more than $20,000 to send his family of eight to the resort only to learn about the strike, three-hour ski lift lines and potentially unsafe mountain conditions.
“We thought it’d be a fun kind of Christmas gift to go do this kind of once-in-a lifetime ski trip,” Nystrom told NBC News. “The really frustrating part was just the lack of transparency.
Park City said on its website that city officials were "pleased that the patrol union strike has ended and are looking forward to welcoming back our patrollers,” adding that more terrain would open quickly.
