The longest ski patrol strike in American history ended Thursday when Telluride’s 75-member patrol union voted to accept a revised contract offer from resort owner Chuck Horning.
The Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association walked out December 27, shutting down the resort during peak holiday season. Thirteen days later, facing a community in revolt and bookings in collapse, both sides blinked.
The deal brings patrollers close to a 20 percent pay increase over the life of the contract, according to a worker who spoke to CBS News. The union also won recognition of supervisors in the bargaining unit. But TPSPA President Graham Hoffman acknowledged it fell short of their core demand. “It’s a compromise,” he told the Telluride Times. “Not everyone gets what they want.”
The union’s statement was blunter: “While we are ultimately very disappointed to not address our broken wage structure, we are immensely proud of our efforts that have led to this financial movement.”
The damage to Telluride was severe. December occupancy dropped 42 percent. The first week of January cratered 59 percent—compared to just 6 percent at comparable resorts dealing only with Colorado’s thin snowpack. Businesses started laying off workers. More than 100 merchants and residents marched through town Wednesday demanding both sides end the impasse. An online petition gathered 500 signatures asking the union to “accept a less than ideal offer” because “the alternative is the destruction of the community that supports you.”
Horning’s company had continued paying its 1,200 idled seasonal workers through the closure, but those paychecks were scheduled to stop January 11. The next three weeks represent Telluride’s biggest booking window of the year.
The resort begins reopening Saturday with Lift 4. More terrain will follow.
The strike exposed what happens when a one-industry town’s workforce can no longer afford to live there. Patrollers sought wages that matched a cost of living 75 percent above the national average, where median home prices hit $1.6 million and even shared rentals run $1,349 monthly. The union wanted structural reforms to retain experienced patrollers—workers who carry explosives into avalanche terrain, perform technical rescues, and take years to master Telluride’s demanding mountain.
They got more money. They didn’t get the structure.
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