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Vail's employee problems discussed in Vail Daily.

Jenny

Angel Diva
I just learned that my friend's teenager was fired from his ski instructor job (at one of the independent ski schools at Snoqualmie) last winter after asking to be paid for all of the hours that he was required to be at work. So, while it doesn't seem this is legal in WA, it happens. The employer told him, we do it the way everyone else does it, this is how ski instructing works, we only pay for the time you teach. He reiterated his desire to be paid for all of the hours he was required to be at work, and was fired. One of the things the employer told him was, "look at all the benefits you get!" They gave him a free jacket, a discount season pass, and allowed him to sleep in a dorm room in a hut (which apparently felt quite sketchy as the hut was full of hard drinking older guys) on the days he taught. Not very lucrative IMO or to him. This kid very easily found a job in his neighborhood and made way more close to home than he would have at Snoqualmie, which is an hour's drive.
I’m glad he spoke up. Such BS, especially when added to the details you gave in the next post about it. He should report it to the state labor board, if for no other reason than to get it on record so that when enough complaints are made they show a pattern.
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
... Not saying it is right but also not sure how they could pay us for 4 hrs a day if they don't make a dime...? ...

It seems to me that if you're charging $1000/ day for private lessons, there should be some buffer in there to pay people reasonably. In an ideal world (which obviously & sadly we are not in), the cost of paying instructors some reasonable daily minimum would be built into the cost of doing business, and I don't feel like that's a crazy expectation.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
It would be the fair and right thing to do, but unlike europe, labor laws here protect the employer, and it sucks.

I faught like a fiend to get the wage compression that happened last year adressed. It worked. We managed to get them to pay us for the lunch hour that we never earned if we taught 2 half days versus the full day lesson. That was huge as few people ski the full 7 hrs of a full day but 2 half days means we are working harder. Can't imagine what it is like at the resorts that offer one hour lessons throughout the day.

From the school's perspective, they choose how to distribute the instructor pay budget. To be honest I prefer that the money is spent on the incentives process. This means that through a complex pay determination process those that focus on becoming skilled through training and show up daybin and day out and build our clientele and reputation over the years take home more of the pay. All those hours with no work I would spend training in the early years.

I think of the work as being self employed with the booking agency taking a very very large cut. Like 90 per cent. Sometimes they take much less. On a group lesson with one guest...they make 10 per cent.

A really disheartening industry with zero protections is farming in the US. Children working for a fraction of their migratory parents and normal age limitations don't apply.

We can change it through laws, because relying on corporations that own ski areas to do so because it is the right thing to do is a waste of time.
 

Christy

Angel Diva
Not saying it is right but also not sure how they could pay us for 4 hrs a day if they don't make a dime..
The same way restaurants/retail businesses/etc do. Those employees still make an hourly wage. It's a very normal thing and in most places, the law, to have a business model that does this. I've worked those kinds of jobs and when there are no customers, you are tasked with other things.
 

Christy

Angel Diva
@Christy you can also suggest contacting Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries— https://www.lni.wa.gov/ — to file a complaint.

That's exactly what he said he was going to do, though I don't know if he did. This is a motivated teen in a city with a ton of options, and he easily found other ways to make money (and this was last winter). Not sure how much energy he ultimately wanted to spend on the situation. I love that he called them out at least, and when I heard their weak excuse of " but that's how everyone does it" knew I had to relay the story.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The same way restaurants/retail businesses/etc do. Those employees still make an hourly wage. It's a very normal thing and in most places, the law, to have a business model that does this. I've worked those kinds of jobs and when there are no customers, you are tasked with other things.
Unfortunately our retail staff and food and beverage also get sent home with no pay if there is not enough business to justify having a fully staffed business on a given day. They don't have it happen near as much as we do in the mountain sports school. I can only surmise that WY has labor laws that do little for at will non contract employees which is the umbrella for most seasonal full and part time employees. I have worked a fair bit of food and beverage events here too. We get sent home when the work is done and there is no information on the duration of the work day that we sign up for. Sometimes it is 3 hrs, sometimes 10hrs!
 

Christy

Angel Diva
Unfortunately our retail staff and food and beverage also get sent home with no pay if there is not enough business to justify having a fully staffed business on a given day. They don't have it happen near as much as we do in the mountain sports school. I can only surmise that WY has labor laws that do little for at will non contract employees which is the umbrella for most seasonal full and part time employees. I have worked a fair bit of food and beverage events here too. We get sent home when the work is done and there is no information on the duration of the work day that we sign up for. Sometimes it is 3 hrs, sometimes 10hrs!

That's nuts! How is anyone supposed to earn a living that way? It's crazy that can actually find people to fill the jobs. You must be right about the weak labor laws.
 

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