Purgatory Resort and its bike patrol team could be finished with wage negotiations by mid-April, says a patroller involved with the discussions.
In September, Purgatory’s bike patrol team became the first summertime patrol unit to unionize in the United States. Following their ski patrol counterparts, they were in search of better wages, gear stipends and training in hopes of bettering the patroller retention.
Bike and ski patroller Jordan Diefenderfer told The Durango Herald in September that the industry standard for patrollers is between $18 and $20 per hour and that Purgatory’s pay was well below that.
“Those are the main things that we talked about, in addition to legitimizing bike patrol as a force,” said Purgatory bike patroller Riley Aguilar. “One of the things that dropped morale last summer was that bike patrol didn’t feel like a legitimate entity.”
Aguilar did not disclose the specifics of the negotiations as nothing has been finalized. However, Aguilar says bike patrol members feel positive about the dialogue they have had so far with resort management. He said the bike patrol team has had four to five meetings with Purgatory management and is hoping to finalize a contract on April 17.
“We're getting a lot more than we had hoped for and there's just a few more things that we need to fine tune and smooth out before we can move forward,” Aguilar said.
He said management is working in good faith with the bike patrol team and listening to concerns.
In September, patrollers who work during both the winter and the summer wanted to become year-round employees of the resort. Aguilar said that has not been part of the negotiations as the bike patrollers have been focused on securing better pay and gear stipends.
Aguilar said bike patrol does a lot more than people think and the negotiations are a step in the right direction toward legitimizing the job as a career path.
“There’s a lot of added logistics,” he said. “It’s a lot harder to evacuate a patient in the summertime as compared to the wintertime due to the terrain. You have to get a vehicle up there because it's not safe to put a toboggan-like thing on a bike and try to go down a downhill track with that.”
Resort management said this week that negotiations are in progress and did not offer further comment.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
