After 18 months of negotiations, Whitefish Mountain Resort executives and the resort's ski patrol union are finalizing a one-year contract for the upcoming season.

Patrollers unionized in March 2024 with the goals of increasing wages and improving benefits such as paid time off, health care stipends, continuing education and a gear allowance. 

While the contract is an improvement, ski patrol union president Jamie Burkholder said negotiations will resume next year with the goal of paying every patroller a livable wage. 

“It's a finish line, but it's not the finish line we were really hoping for,” Burkholder said last week.   

Before the contract, the base wage for a patroller at the resort was $18 per hour, with a gear allowance of $750 every three seasons. The resort provides a jacket, but all other gear comes out of the patroller’s own pocket, including skis, boots, helmet, pants and a backpack. Professional development and training grants are available through the philanthropic Patrol Fund.    

Resort president Nick Polumbus and Burkholder did not provide what wages will be for ski patrollers this winter, noting that the contract is in the process of being ratified.   

A living wage is the hourly rate an individual must earn to support themselves and their family while working full time, or 2,080 hours a year. In Flathead County, a livable wage for an adult with no children is $23.29, according to the Living Wage Calculator.  

“At this point we’re not going to get everybody up to livability,” Burkholder said. “But [this contract] is a pretty big improvement from where we were at in the past.” 

Polumbus expects more wage negotiations next summer.  

Ski patrollers never halted operations or went on strike during contract negotiations. 

“We don’t want to go on strike,” Burkholder said. “We’d just like to see solid communication between ourselves and the mountain.”  

Burkholder and Polumbus noted that finding time to meet over the past 18 months delayed negotiations. Both parties also took extra time to review the contract as articles were being developed. 

“I needed to know that everything was done methodically and well in the first contract because so much of the first contact never gets reopened, I needed to feel very good about it,” Polumbus said. 

Whitefish Mountain Resort Professional Ski Patrol filed the petition to unionize in February 2024 with the National Labor Relations Board under the United Professional Ski Patrols of America. Patrol members assumed negotiations would be finished ahead of the ski season last year.  

"We live in a ski town. Skiing in our winter months is definitely a big part of what a lot of us like to do,” Burkholder said. “We have no interest in interrupting that, but we want to make it a viable source of employment for folks.” 

Reporter Kate Heston may be reached at 758-4459 or [email protected].