Can they really do this to instructors?

[LKLA]

As an employee of the mountain, teaching for the ski school, you are covered by its insurance should someone sue you, either your client or someone your client rams into. You are also covered by workmen's comp.

When you are teaching on your own, you are not covered in any way by the mountain. You should also check with your personal insurance to see if you are covered should you be teaching independently, off the books. This could be disastrous for your finances if it happened.

Exactly my point. When teaching for the ski school, no issues. When teaching on your own, different story.

 

[crgildart]

99.99999% of us ski resorts have policies banning freelance ski instruction on their property. It even estends to tour groups who want to bring their own instructor/coach. You have to get special permission from the resort management to do that. It's not just resorts on forest land. They pretty much all do it. And, they'll certainly fire any ski school staff they catch working side jobs teaching on resort property.

It's all about taking money from their potential business, not really about the liability. They want a monopoly in ski lessons and they fight hard to keep it.

 

[Nancy Hummel]

OMG this is why others don't comment any longer on this forum any longer. Make one comment and it's a storm of attack totally deviating away from the original topic. Not worth it. I'm done. Peace out.

I don't feel that anyone was trying to attack you. No one wants to see unintended consequences occur. I will shut up now.

 

[oldschoolskier]

Explains a lot why there used be be instructor bashing in Epic on the occasional thread. Resorts are retaining the worst not the best. The few good ones that stay because of the perks, , you are who actual teach skiing.

 

[BC.]

Explains a lot why there used be be instructor bashing in Epic on the occasional thread. Resorts are retaining the worst not the best.

That's not going to go over very well......yikes.

 

[WheatKing]

I don't have any stake in this, but it seems to me that the PSIA should be doing a better job of protecting their members (those that are certified to teach). If I were certified by them, and paying dues in order to teach and were being treated poorly I'd be pushing for better representation from the association.

I'd suggest something like that if they're going to use certified instructors that each level has a wage bands that must be met in order to use the PSIA brand in order to promote their on site lessons based on resort tiers. For instance Vail would be required to pay more than a mom/pop for the same level.

The brand has value, the costs of lessons shows this. In fact the PSIA brand is more valuable than the instructors that deliver the lessons.. which probably is the root issue. The resorts have a monopoly on who is allowed to teach, and they want PSIA certified. But it is the association who the instructors represent, not the resort. Someone isn't a Killington instructor.. they're a L3 working at Killington.. It should be up to the association to provide better value to the members by holding resorts to account and protecting their brand.

Just my 0.02

 

[SkiSchoolPros]

I don't have any stake in this, but it seems to me that the PSIA should be doing a better job of protecting their members (those that are certified to teach). If I were certified by them, and paying dues in order to teach and were being treated poorly I'd be pushing for better representation from the association.

I'd suggest something like that if they're going to use certified instructors that each level has a wage bands that must be met in order to use the PSIA brand in order to promote their on site lessons based on resort tiers. For instance Vail would be required to pay more than a mom/pop for the same level.

The brand has value, the costs of lessons shows this. In fact the PSIA brand is more valuable than the instructors that deliver the lessons.. which probably is the root issue. The resorts have a monopoly on who is allowed to teach, and they want PSIA certified. But it is the association who the instructors represent, not the resort. Someone isn't a Killington instructor.. they're a L3 working at Killington.. It should be up to the association to provide better value to the members by holding resorts to account and protecting their brand.

Just my 0.02

Agree with you, but PSIA has steered clear of this...one could even argue that PSIA has done a very good job protecting their member SCHOOLS- By having an organization that individual instructors already pay dues to, it makes some less likely to want join a union that might have a second set of dues...they wrongly? think that if PSIA hasn't been able to get them a reasonable wage, why would a union?

PSIA's pre 2017 mission statement made it seem like they might care about a professional wage for instructors, but the new vision makes it very clear they won't advocate for instructors https://www.thesnowpros.org/news/id...atement-embraces-adventures-through-education

 

[Wasatchman]

I appreciate the sentiment resorts can choose to pay their instructors what they want within the limits of the law.

At the same time, I am opposed to condoning a system that pays instructors that little and support efforts to improve things in that regard. And shedding light of the practice that is going on including how valuable a tip actually is to an instructor.

I don't want to sound like I am on some moral high horse, but it is disappointing not to hear a bit more compassion on this topic. Just because a system is doesn't necessarily make it inherently fair to me.

In an extreme analogy, I don't want to support buying goods made in a foreign sweatshop that uses child labor. I mean you could argue it's legal in that country and technically the kids in many cases are not physically forced to work in the sweatshop right?

From what I am hearing what is happening in these examples that have been brought up does seem inherently unfair. So I can sympathize. How would people on this forum feel if every time at work they went to their supervisor and raised an issue they thought was unfair the constant remark was go get another profession including the bake shop down the road.

If you feel the instructor pay examples are fair, well carry on. Likewise, it would be nice to hear from a few others acknowledging some of the examples seem unfair and you hope they improve.

 

[WynnDuffy]

Wow some of you guys are literally bonkers. Go to any magic carpet at literally any resort in the country and two-thirds of the people learning are being taught by a buddy or family member. Do you go up to them and tell them to get liability insurance? Or are you only warriors when online?

 

[oldschoolskier]

That's not going to go over very well......yikes.

That wasn’t intended as a slight to the instructors on this site, more as a dig at the resorts for playing dirty with instructors in general. Doesn’t do the skiing public any good.

 

[FlyingAce]

It is not right that instructors only get a small hourly pay for teaching when the resorts pocket everything, but it is equally unfair to expect clients to tip to subsidize for the low pay. Afterall, they have already paid alot of money for the lessons, so why should they pay more? The issue is between the resorts and the employees. It is not the client’s responsibility to make this fair.
I have many friends who work minimum pay jobs, who save up money all year just to take ski lessons. They don’t have extra to give away just because they feel bad that someone is not getting paid enough. No one ever gets paid enough.
Is there anything that the instructors can do to change how things are being done? Can they negotiate or is this a “take it or leave it” kind of deal?

 

[oldschoolskier]

Thinking over what was written earlier by a few others, this issue is resorts can’t predict demand. Its that are discouraging customer to buy lessons thereby self limiting demand. In part the cost for lessons are getting to the point of being prohibitive, along with walk up Insanely priced ski day passes.

Basically this new ski business model is flawed as it is geared to avoid gaining new business over short term profits.

Reduce the lessons rates dramatically, even more encourage lesson/ski/rental packages. This will cause growth.

On the instructor side this will provide predictable hours and pay.

 

[James]

The brand has value, the costs of lessons shows this. In fact the PSIA brand is more valuable than the instructors that deliver the lessons.. which probably is the root issue. The resorts have a monopoly on who is allowed to teach, and they want PSIA certified. But it is the association who the instructors represent, not the resort. Someone isn't a Killington instructor.. they're a L3 working at Killington.. It should be up to the association to provide better value to the members by holding resorts to account and protecting their brand.

Sort of, not really. The public cares jack about psia. No value there.
Killington has their own training. You don't need psia. Yes, a level 3 through psia has meaning, but when your working at Killington, your a Killington instructor. When you work at any mountain your that mountains instructor. It's not like there's open access mountains to go hang your "Level 3" sign on and teach. Because of that, it has much less to no meaning on the market.
It does serve as an independent training entity, which can also partially absolve the mountains from training.

 

[Wasatchman]

To balance out my previous post so that I don't sound like a total bleeding heart, I do think it is also important to acknowledge that a lot of ski resorts not connected to Vail/Alterra struggle financially.

Ski school is apparently run as a large profit center to subsidize other areas of mountain ops that run at a loss. Accordingly, if ski school instructor pay went up, a lot of these resorts would have to get increased profits somewhere else just to keep the lifts spinning.

So it's worth acknowledging that any proposals for higher instructor pay should probably take that into consideration as well. Where would some of these resorts get offsetting higher revenue or lower costs to pay for higher direct instructor pay?

 

[scott43]

. No one ever gets paid enough.

I get paid enough. I get your point though.. We're all struggling to make ends meet.

 

[scott43]

So it's worth acknowledging that any proposals for higher instructor pay should probably take that into consideration as well. Where would some of these resorts get offsetting higher revenue or lower costs to pay for higher direct instructor pay?

Is it fair to put it on the backs of ski schools? Maybe lift tickets need to go up. Dunno.

 

[HardDaysNight]

Thanks for all the input everyone, it seems this problem is widespread across our corporatized profession. I came across this sad post on a PSIA fb group page with a lively discussion under it-
''I'd like to shine some light on an issue.
Last year I taught skiing at Bretton Woods. It was my 10th season. I was one of the best skiers in the ski school. I... made $13.00 after 10 years. My W-2 from last year working full time is less than $3,000. I studied skiing, reading and watching. I practiced 6 days a week. I took clinics on how to teach better. I was a PSIA members which cost me $136 yearly. I paid for my certification, my required equipment.
This is my pay for working 6 hours Christmas Eve in 2018. I made $26 before taxes and gas. New instructors now start at $10.00 per hour. HR 275 43-a gives the mountains the right to require ski instructors to be at the mountain all day and only get paid if they have a lesson. I called the Labor Department to have the Mountain reviewed. Even after only needing to pay us for the time we spend in a lesson, they were still not paying people legally.
I was paid $26.00 the mountain made $233.00
Tip your instructor or don't take a lesson through the mountain.''-Chris Silk

Problem is, most customers aren't aware we're basically like waiters hoping for a tip.

Reading this kind of stuff makes me agree more with @fatbob. If instructors collectively can’t defend themselves against this sort of absurd exploitation they have no business expecting students, who are already paying through the nose for their lessons, to
make them whole.

 

[Steve]

@HardDaysNight that's very true. I don't think we do. That's why I can say "any tip is great!" Really just saying "I don't need the money, just some respect." I realize that in such, I'm contributing to the problem.

Many years ago I taught at Berklee College of Music, we were trying to get higher wages and the President of the College was in effect saying "you're musicians, you have jobs, you should be grateful."

Similar.

 

[HardDaysNight]

^^^That's fair enough. FWIW I believe that instructors like you, who have put in tremendous effort over many years to develop the knowledge and skill to teach effectively, have more reason to be discontent than the many clueless who just want a free pass.

 

[Dave Marshak]

99.99999% of us BUSINESSES have policies banning freelance COMPETITORS on their property.

FIFY
It’s just good business. Get over it.

dm