Members of the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Union - part of United Mountain Workers (UMW)/Communications Workers of America (CWA ) Local 7781, have been on Strike since December 27th (2025) to secure a contract with fair wages and safety standards to attract and retain essential Staff. Patrollers at Telluride Ski Resort in Colorado perform vital and often dangerous duties during the Winter Season, providing medical assistance and guidance to visitors on the mountain. The Strike was called after months of stalled negotiations and retaliation by the resort’s owner, Chuck Horning - a real-estate investor based in California, who shut down the mountain and blamed Patrollers for closures during the Holiday Season. Against this backdrop, the median home price in the resort town has skyrocketed to nearly $4 million since the Coronavirus Pandemic, with Workers feeling the pinch of being priced out. “Coming down to picket instead of coming to work holds more uncertainty than our persistent slab snowpack,” the Union said in a Social Media post. “For the first time in our history, these Workers are taking a stand to create a sustainable wage structure for the future of this patrol. This was never the path we wanted to take, but it is the one we need to try in order to secure a fair contract that doesn’t land us in this same position in three years.”

Photo Courtesy Of The National AFL-CIO.