Park City’s hardworking ski patrollers are right to fight back against corporate greed | Opinion | Salt Lake City Weekly

Park City’s hardworking ski patrollers are right to fight back against corporate greed 

Opinion

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The Vail Resorts conglomerate that owns Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) seems determined to devalue those weary ski travelers who paid for costly ski trips by providing them long lines, fewer open runs and but a few scab ski patrollers to assist them. The conglomerate (synonymous for "scofflaw" in American finance), is leaving their customers shushing in place over a raise of two bucks per hour, demanded by the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association members who refuse to work.

Yes, you read that correctly ... two George Washingtons.

These are the men and women who patrol the slopes as highly-trained skiers, EMTs and the cops on the mountain beat. They are professionals—no longer like uncle Franz, who did it for his ski pass and a chance to ogle the ski bunnies back in 1958, when Sverre Engen lived across from my post-Bingham Canyon family on Galena Drive in Sandy.

Ski patrollers are trained in getting injured would-be Franz Klammers and Lindsey Vonns untangled from trees and one another, then down the mountain safely. They monitor avalanches and go willingly into danger zones to prevent serious injury and death at the risk of their own lives. They teach, prepare and patrol so there isn't a Gwyneth Paltrow incident every 10 minutes high upon those mountains.

The spokeswoman for Vail Resorts choked out the defense that those 4,069 Mexican centavos might just break their corporate piggy bank ("pig" being the operative word here) and argued that, besides, they provide the Professional Ski Patrol with the equipment to do their job, which is costly. She expects snowblind peons to think hers is actually the Vail Corporate Benevolence Society.

Upon reading the resort's official statement, I mumbled a very bad word. Long ago, unions fought to provide safety equipment and proper protective clothing for employees. They fought so that John Saltas (the founder of this newspaper) and I were later provided hard-toed boots, gloves, a hard hat (for our stubborn, ethnic heads) and protective eyeglasses back when we worked on the college track gangs in the Kennecott Copper Mine in Bingham Canyon 50 years ago. Unions fought so we youngens didn't "Go to Die Upon that Mountain" (apologies to Vince Gill) or leave a toe, a finger or an eye there.

A friend—who has ski patrolled for some 40 years and worked at PCMR, but who left for another resort for more money and better work conditions—lifted the veil on Vail. He said that Vail fears paying a fair wage at any one of their resorts, as such demands could spread and threaten their vortex of greed.

These are the same corporations that pay no taxes while demanding better public roads, bridges and snow removal to make coming to their venues more attractive to those now skiing in place on Park City Mountain.

The spokeswoman for the Ski Patrol Association (the union) suggested that since PCMR charges 25 George Washingtons for a hamburger, 10 more for a beer and more than 200 for a day pass, they can afford the minimal two-dollar raise for those who do the heavy lifting.

I just think the union is being reasonable: They underbid on their demand. Two bucks won't even pay for the pickles on a PCMR burger.

During one mining strike, my father, Nick Yengich—a union man who put in 50 years in the same hole John and I worked as summer hires—was on the negotiating committee of the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union, Local 485. Sitting next to him was the Union President, Joe Dispenza—his father was seriously injured in Ludlow, Colorado, where members of the National Guard famously attacked and killed strikers and family. My dad's father had been seriously injured in a cave-in at Bingham and walked with a pronounced limp the rest of his life.

Neither father of those strong-minded union negotiators were given a penny, let alone two bucks for their pain. Their sons, therefore, knew who they were dealing with when they bargained with the human corporate checkbooks sitting across from them.

These were working union men who understood the reality of mountain work.

The negotiations dragged for weeks as the company resisted every small concession. The company representatives and their lawyers requested that the bargaining stop so they could go home to their families in New York for a long weekend, even though every day meant more financial pain for the working stiffs.

My father, Joe and their union team huddled and then agreed but, the old man said, "yeah, you go fly home to New York. Take your family out for steaks at Delmonico's and the Stork Club while you nickel and dime our people. You figure you can starve us out, the people who just want to take their families out to Dee's for a hamburger, Coke and fries? We will be here when you get back."

With that, the union men got up and left the room. The strike continued for a while, but the New Yorkers eventually returned and capitulated.

Greed lost that round, but the fight is always hard with American corporate greed. They are always looking out for the conglomerate of selfishness. Associations like the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association and the Old Mine Mill and Smelter Union are there to make them shift their eyes to those who do the hard work.

I feel bad for those whose ski vacations were compromised or destroyed. But I feel even worse for the hardworking people who are underpaid and underappreciated by their employers.

Thank God for the Ski Patrol—be pissed and tell the corporate conglomerate to pay their workers "Who Go High Upon their Mountain."

Private Eye is off this week. Send feedback to comments@cityweekly.net

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Ron Yengich

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