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Vail Resorts- a new leaf?

SkiSchoolPros

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I learned this week that Vail is addressing some of the issues that gave rise to multiple unpaid wages lawsuits. I view this as a step in the right direction even if they are viewing many areas of "Epic Service" as unpaid "voluntary" requests.

I am posting this to give credit where credit is due and to get the word out to Vail Resort employees that they are now REQUIRED to report the following which had previously been "off the clock" work:

Reading "Required" Company emails. (The employee makes the determination if a particular email is required reading or not and should only record the time for emails they actually read)

Communication with supervisors (outside of time that is already being paid.)

Filling out Company Forms

Timekeeping Guidance for SRS Instructors
 Key Takeaway: Employees must record all daily working time in the Electronic Time Card without
exception. Employees are prohibited from performing any work without recording the time,
regardless of the reason and how small a particular task may be. For ease of entry, the Electronic
Time Card contains pre-populated “lesson timeframes” but, if any work is performed outside of
the lesson timeframe, employees are required to record this time in other portions of the
Electronic Time Card. If time can only be recorded in certain increments (e.g., 5-minute
increments), employees must always round up (e.g., if you spent 2 minutes on a task, record 5
minutes of working time). If all work performed occurred within the pre-populated lesson
timeframe, no additional time needs to be recorded.
 Equipment: Employees must record the time spent putting on and taking off equipment (boots,
helmets, skis, board) in the locker room if it occurs outside the lesson timeframe. Note that time
spent putting on and taking off base layers, pants, and jackets should not be recorded.
 Gondola & Chairlift Travel: If employees’ only option to get to their work location is the gondola
or chairlift, the time spent waiting for and riding the gondola or chairlift should be recorded if it
occurs outside the lesson timeframe.
 Travel Time: Employees must record any time spent traveling on-mountain (e.g., from morning
meeting to guest pick-up) if it occurs at the direction of their supervisor, while working, and occurs
outside the lesson timeframe.
 Training Time: Employees must record any time spent attending trainings that are required or
expected by the Company. Personal, voluntary training time should not be recorded.
 Meetings: Employees must record any time spent attending virtual or in-person meetings outside
the lesson timeframe, even if the meeting is optional.
 Miscellaneous: Employees must record any time spent working outside the lesson timeframe for
any reason in the miscellaneous pay drop downs, including extended lessons, scanning, lift ops.,
etc.
 Electronic timecard populated time: The electronic timecard for many resorts will include a pre-
populated time in minutes for many of the above tasks that is tailored to your specific location.
NOTE: If the non-lesson tasks on a given day took more time than the pre-populated time and
occurred outside the lesson timeframe, employees must add that additional time to the
timecard.

Note- Communication with Ski School Clients (i.e. like arranging lessons, meeting locations, etc.) is still considered an instructor's voluntary personal business and is unpaid. However, lesson requests can be past on to SS management who will take care of getting it booked.

Travel pay is not added to pay when traveling to meet clients within Eagle County if you know ahead of time – so, if you drive from your home to Beaver Creek to meet clients at Beaver Creek, you will not be paid for the additional time spent driving to Beaver Creek as opposed to your “home” mountain of Vail.” Travel pay between different base areas at your home mountain for pre-scheduled private lessons depends upon locker availability at the meeting location.

Note- Training via The Lift, which got paid automatically in the past, must now be entered manually on electronic timecards.

Everyone should have gotten a holiday email from our new CEO Kirsten Lynch in uniform
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Thread Starter
TS
SkiSchoolPros

SkiSchoolPros

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Yes, after years of a growing income gap between top earners and frontline workers, there are lots of worker shortages. I saw a headline the other day about schools and governments having difficulty competing with the higher wages some private companies were offering...I know its taking much longer before my street and sidewalk are plowed despite it being a light snow year so far. The Summit Stage is still at 1 bus an hour on most routes, including Copper which has had up to 3/hr in the past. Wendy's is starting workers at $18/hr and Target @ $19.50.
 

Posaune

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Yes, after years of a growing income gap between top earners and frontline workers, there are lots of worker shortages. I saw a headline the other day about schools and governments having difficulty competing with the higher wages some private companies were offering...I know its taking much longer before my street and sidewalk are plowed despite it being a light snow year so far. The Summit Stage is still at 1 bus an hour on most routes, including Copper which has had up to 3/hr in the past. Wendy's is starting workers at $18/hr and Target @ $19.50.
This is the common excuse for running only half of the lifts and serving under half of the terrain, but why is it that all of the other ski areas in my region are as open as the snow and terrain will allow and the one Vail property is not? Mt. Baker is running all lifts every day this season, an increase over their pre-pandemic operations. The only thing I can figure is that Vail doesn't care enough to do anything about the problem. They've sold their passes, so let them (the customers) eat cake.
 

DanoT

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Whistler, Vail's other PNW resort is listing 219 of 270 runs open, 25 of 27 lifts, and 81% of the terrain open. Not too bad for early season, imo.

When you look at job openings, Whistler has some but Stevens has hardly any openings listed and some offer $15/hour and accommodation while in B.C. at Whistler the min wage is $15.20CAD. It looks like at least for some jobs, Stevens offers more than Whistler to its prospective employees.

Maybe lifts staying closed at Stevens it not a Vail Corporate thing but local management trying to look good by keeping expenses low?
 
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Posaune

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Maybe lifts staying closed at Stevens it not a Vail Corporate thing but local management trying to look good by keeping expenses low?
Maybe, but it's still the responsibility of Vail to keep the place running, and as a 58 year member of the Stevens community I can say with no qualms that nothing like this has ever taken place before.
 

Henry

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"Whistler, Vail's other PNW resort is listing 219 of 270 runs open, 25 of 27 lifts, and 81% of the terrain open."
Sometimes this is aspirational. Did they actually get 219 runs open in a timely manner? Were 27 lifts running in a timely manner, wind permitting? In the past few years it seemed, speculated while standing waiting for a lift to open, that they didn't have enough avvie control crews getting things open. I know, for Whistler especially, they need their guest workers, and Covid had Australia and other places shut down.
 

gilligan

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"Whistler, Vail's other PNW resort is listing 219 of 270 runs open, 25 of 27 lifts, and 81% of the terrain open."
Sometimes this is aspirational. Did they actually get 219 runs open in a timely manner? Were 27 lifts running in a timely manner, wind permitting? In the past few years it seemed, speculated while standing waiting for a lift to open, that they didn't have enough avvie control crews getting things open. I know, for Whistler especially, they need their guest workers, and Covid had Australia and other places shut down.
I skied Whistler Monday-Thursday last week and at least while I was there, yes, they did get the lifts open in a timely manner. Thursday morning, for example, they had 11" of new snow. Arrived at the village at 8:35 and all lower and mid-mountain lifts were spinning, Crystal and 7th Heaven were open by 10:15 and Glacier opened at 10:30 which didn't seem unreasonable considering the amount of snow that fell.
 

Ken_R

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They've sold their passes, so let them (the customers) eat cake.

Bingo.

Then in a few months they just flex their publicity/ad muscle and sell even more passes.

That said I think not all Vail resorts are run exactly the same. There is some independence at each one. Some as in very little.
 

markojp

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Maybe lifts staying closed at Stevens it not a Vail Corporate thing but local management trying to look good by keeping expenses low?

No. This isn't the case at all. It's sort of death by 1000 cuts. Some sound like they're in Vail's wheelhouse, others are not.
 

gilligan

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No. This isn't the case at all. It's sort of death by 1000 cuts. Some sound like they're in Vail's wheelhouse, others are not.
Bingo. I think they bought Stevens Pass because it's near a large, affluent metro area with an avid ski base. They're selling Epic Passes to SP devotees to feed those Seattle-area skiers into its marquee properties where they'll spend money. I doubt Stevens is much on their radar other than to sell Epic passes.
 

DanoT

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Seattle skiers with an Epic pass can day ski at Stevens and weekend ski at Whistler; makes for an attractive PNW product.
 

markojp

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Seattle skiers with an Epic pass can day ski at Stevens and weekend ski at Whistler; makes for an attractive PNW product.

US 2 has had multiple closures this season. Lots of new residents who really don't understand that all season tires aren't really appropriate for winter pass travel here. Road gets closed, no one gets to or from Stevens, period.
 

Posaune

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Seattle skiers with an Epic pass can day ski at Stevens and weekend ski at Whistler; makes for an attractive PNW product.
This is true, but if they don't run all of the lifts at Stevens into the future their pass sales will go down. They run only half of the mountain most of the time if last season and the beginning of this one are any indication of how they'll run things. Many folks will give up on them and move on.
 

Tom Co.

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This is a cross post from the PNW thread. I thought it might be appropriate here.

There is a nice petition on change.org about the situation at Stevens Pass. Here is a link:


I signed this and as of 7:30 Tuesday there were more than 1200 signatures
 

DanoT

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This is true, but if they don't run all of the lifts at Stevens into the future their pass sales will go down. They run only half of the mountain most of the time if last season and the beginning of this one are any indication of how they'll run things. Many folks will give up on them and move on.
So you're saying a lot of folks will switch from Epic to Ikon for 2022-23 despite the higher cost?

They can then ski Crystal as well as drive right by Stevens Pass on the way to Red Mtn, B.C.? Sounds like a done deal for some or maybe many.
 

4ster

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This is a cross post from the PNW thread. I thought it might be appropriate here.

There is a nice petition on change.org about the situation at Stevens Pass. Here is a link:


I signed this and as of 7:30 Tuesday there were more than 1200 signatures
I just signed because they need to be held accountable for degrading the on hill experience worldwide :(
 

DanoT

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I just signed because they need to be held accountable for degrading the on hill experience worldwide
While I am not a fan of most of Vail's resorts, owned or associated, I don't think they degraded skiing experience worldwide. They screwed things up at Stevens, but what about Whistler; it isn't any more screwed up than it always was. Have they screwed up Northstar, Heavenly, Kirkwood or others? Lets hear about it.

Vail has certainly made lift access less expensive at their resorts and partners and the competition has been forced to follow suit.
 

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