The following pitch was accepted by High Country News, and resulted in this article.
Subject: (Sort of) time sensitive query: Ski patrollers unionize as industry consolidates
Hi [editor’s name],
A pitch:
The second round of contract negotiations between ski patrollers and management took place last week at Stevens Pass Resort near Seattle, Washington. Colorado-based Vail purchased the ski area before the 2019 season as part of a flurry of acquisitions that have established its partial domination of a rapidly consolidating North American ski resort industry. The purchase set in motion an organizing drive of patrollers agitated by changes instituted by the new management, and in April this year, a significant majority voted to unionize—joining just five other ski patrol units across the nation [Note: in fact there were eight at the time]—before scattering for the offseason to their other lines of work.
Organizers faced two fronts of skepticism leading up to the successful vote: Many patrollers feared that union representation would undermine the informal spirit of the seasonal job, which for many is a labor of love. Skeptics also feared that a union structure would foster an antagonistic atmosphere between them and their supervisors—tasked with carrying out management’s edicts—who many rank and file patrollers regard as friends.
Vail brought in a consulting firm to foment such concerns among a workforce that generally has very little experience with unions. In one-on-one and group meetings at patroller homes after work, organizers tried to assuage these fears, arguing that a written union contract would merely foster a more equal and transparent workplace and set written standards for an often-dangerous and under-compensated job—all in an industry that, despite its increasingly corporate nature, still often relates to workers with a breezy, casual, family-owned tone that critics regard as disingenuous.
For HCN, I’d like to write an account of this Stevens Pass organizing drive that will underscore the complexities of organizing seasonal workers, and explore the changing dynamics for workers and skiiers alike in an industry increasingly dominated by Vail and newly-established Alterra, both of which lean heavily on their multi-resort season pass packages, which have considerably altered the business dynamics of resort skiing. The account would be based in interviews with patrollers of all stripes at Stevens, and at the few other already-unionized resorts, as well as other industry stakeholders.
Let me know if you can picture this as a ~1,800 word piece in HCN’s Front of Book section(or if you’d like more info), and I should be able to have you a draft by late January, Below I link to a few relevant clips…