FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Telluride, one of the best-known ski resorts in the Western U.S., plans to close in the coming days due to a labor dispute between its owner and the ski patrol union.

The Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association voted Tuesday to strike Saturday after contract negotiations since June failed to yield an agreement on pay. With no more talks planned before the weekend, Telluride Ski Resort said it will not open that day.

“We are concerned that any organization, particularly one that exists to help people, would do something that will have such a devastating effect on our community,” owner Chuck Horning said Wednesday in a statement.

It was not immediately clear whether the closure will last longer. Resort officials were working on a plan to reopen even if the strike continues, according to the statement.

The patrollers are seeking to be paid more in line with their counterparts at other resorts in the region.

The union wants starting pay to rise from $21 to $28 per hour, and for wages for patrollers with more than 30 years of experience to increase from $30-$36 per hour to $39-$48.60 per hour.

While resort officials sought to lay blame for the impending closure on the union, Andy Dennis, interim safety director and spokesperson for patrollers’ association, said it lies with Horning.

“He’s being a bully. This is what bullies do, take their toys and run,” Dennis said. “All he has to do is give us a fair contract, and this would all be over.”

Ski patrollers sometimes argue for more pay on the grounds that the cost of living is high in ski towns and they are responsible for people’s safety. Patrollers’ duties include attending to injured skiers and the controlled release of avalanches with explosives when nobody is in range.

Even without a strike, Telluride has yet to get going fully this season, with unusually warm weather meaning just 20 of the resort’s 149 trails have been able to open.

Patrollers around the Rocky Mountain region have been voting on unionizing recently.

Last year an almost two-week strike closed many runs and caused long lift lines at Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort. That strike ended when Colorado-based Vail Resorts acceded to demands including a $2-an-hour base pay increase and raises for senior ski patrollers.

PARIS — Workers at the Louvre Museum voted Monday to strike over working conditions and other complaints, a labor union said, dealing another blow to the Paris museum after an embarrassing jewelry heist in October.

The CFDT union said the vote was taken at a meeting of 400 workers on Monday morning and that they decided to strike for the day.

The world’s most-visited museum didn’t open as scheduled. A notice on its website advised would-be visitors that “the museum is closed for the moment.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Workers at the Louvre in Paris will on Monday vote to go on strike or continue talks with the government after months of mounting pressure on the world’s most visited museum, which unions have described as being “in crisis.”

Hundreds of employees will gather behind closed doors in a 500-seat auditorium inside the Paris landmark where unions will present the outcome of recent talks with Culture Minister Rachida Dati before voting by a show of hands.

The outcome could again bring the vast institution to a standstill.

The crunch vote comes as the museum struggles with the aftermath of a daylight jewel heist and an earlier staff strike that abruptly shut the Louvre and stranded thousands of visitors beneath I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid. Last month, the Louvre also announced the temporary closure of some employees’ offices and one public gallery because of weakened floor beams.

During the robbery on October, thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with pieces of the French crown jewels. A Senate inquiry released last week said the thieves escaped with barely 30 seconds to spare, citing broken cameras, outdated equipment, understaffed control rooms and poor coordination that initially sent police to the wrong location.

For employees, the high-profile incident crystallized long-standing concerns that crowding and thin staffing were undermining security and working conditions at a museum that welcomes millions of visitors each year.

Those tensions spilled into public view in June, when striking workers brought the museum to a halt. Visitors with timed tickets waited in long, unmoving lines outside as the doors failed to open — an image that rippled across social media and underscored how fragile operations at the sprawling institution had become.

Unions say talks with the government have made progress but remain incomplete.

Separately, the Culture Ministry said Sunday it has tasked Philippe Jost, who oversaw the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, with a mission to propose a deep reorganization of the Louvre following the findings of an administrative inquiry.

Three rounds of discussions last week produced “quite important progress” on promises of additional full-time hires and increased state funding, Alexis Fritche, general secretary of the culture wing of the CFDT union, told The Associated Press. But the proposals must be confirmed in writing and do not yet meet all demands, he said.

“It’s not completely satisfying,” Fritche said. Employees are “quite determined,” he added, while noting their strong attachment to keeping the world’s most visited museum open to the public.

In their strike notice to Dati last week, the CFDT, CGT and Sud unions said the Louvre was in “crisis,” with insufficient resources and “increasingly deteriorated working conditions.”

If workers vote to strike, the action could last just one day — the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays — though the strike notice is open-ended.

The result of the closed meeting is expected to emerge later on Monday morning. Lawmakers are due at the museum shortly afterward, as France watches to see whether its most famous cultural institution can stay open under growing strain.

___

John Leicester in Paris contributed

NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — The union representing Broadway’s musicians reached a tentative labor agreement with commercial producers on Thursday, averting a potentially crippling strike that would have silenced nearly two dozen musicals.

The American Federation of Musicians Local 802 — which represents 1,200 musicians — had threatened to strike if they didn’t have a new contract by the morning, after going into mediation Wednesday.

Early Thursday, the union said it had struck a tentative deal that includes wage increases and contribution increases to the health fund.

“This three-year agreement provides meaningful wage and health benefit increases that will preserve crucial access to healthcare for our musicians while maintaining the strong contract protections that empower musicians to build a steady career on Broadway,” AFM Local 802 President Bob Suttmann said in a statement.

The 23 shows that could have gone silent ranged from megahits like “Hamilton” and “The Lion King” to newcomers like “Queen of Versailles” and “Chess,” which are still in previews. Plays would not have been automatically impacted.

It was the second Broadway labor deal in less than a week. Labor tensions had already seemed cool after Actors’ Equity Association — which represents over 51,000 members, including singers, actors, dancers and stage managers — announced a new three-year agreement with producers over the weekend.

Members of both unions had been working under expired contracts. The musicians’ contract expired on Aug. 31, and the Equity contract expired Sept. 28.

The health of Broadway — once very much in doubt due to the coronavirus pandemic that shut down theaters for some 18 months — is now very good, at least in terms of box office. It has been a long road back from the days when theaters were shuttered and the future looked bleak, but the 2024-2025 season took in $1.9 billion — the highest-grossing season in recorded history, overtaking the pre-pandemic previous high of $1.8 billion during the 2018-2019 season.

The unions pointed to the financial health of Broadway to argue that producers could afford to up pay and benefits for musicians and actors. Producers, represented by The Broadway League, had countered that the restored health of Broadway could be endangered by potential ticket price increases to accommodate the demands.

The most recent major strike on Broadway was in late 2007, when a 19-day walkout by stagehands dimmed the lights on more than two dozen shows and cost producers and the city millions of dollars in lost revenue.

On Wednesday, three U.S. senators from New York and New Jersey — Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Andy Kim — wrote to both sides, urging them to “participate in good faith negotiations and continued communication.” The senators noted that Broadway supports nearly 100,000 jobs and is “an essential cornerstone in the economic well-being of surrounding businesses and sectors, including hospitality, retail and transportation.”

SAN FRANCISCO — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A planned five-day strike by thousands of registered nurses and other Kaiser Permanente health care workers in California, Hawaii and Oregon ended on Sunday, union leaders and the health care system said.

California-based Kaiser Permanente said it welcomed back about 30,000 employees who participated in the strike, which began Tuesday and ended Sunday morning. Its statement said its facilities were “staffed by physicians, experienced managers and trained staff, along with nearly 6,000 contracted nurses, clinicians and others who worked with us during the strike.”

Plans call for bargaining to resume this week, with a focus on “economic issues,” the statement said. While unions also raised staffing and other concerns, “wages are the reason for the strike and the primary issue in negotiations,” the statement said.

The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, which represents registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse midwives and other health care professionals in California and Hawaii, said in a statement that more than 500 hospitals and clinics were impacted by the strike. It said the strike sent a message that “patient care and safe staffing must come first.”

It announced plans to resume bargaining later this month.

Sarina Roher, president of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, in a statement said Kaiser Permanente “cannot fix its staffing and access crisis without competitive wages that retain and recruit the skilled professionals our patients depend on.”

Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving 12.6 million members at 600 medical offices and 40 hospitals, largely in western U.S. states.

Ballots are being cast Wednesday over a pivotal decision at a Kentucky manufacturing complex that is producing batteries for electric vehicles. Workers will decide whether to join the United Auto Workers and extend a streak of union victories in the South, where organized labor struggled to find solid footing.

A two-day union vote closes Wednesday, about a week after production began at the BlueOval SK battery park, a nearly $6 billion joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and its South Korean partner, SK On.

Batteries from this plant will power the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup and its EV cargo van, the E-Transit.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear says the complex that sprung up in tiny Glendale — a community of around 2,000 residents an hour south of Louisville — is the single largest economic investment in Bluegrass State history.

Pro-union employee Kumari Logan is looking for the security than she believes only a unionized workforce can deliver.

“My bills are guaranteed, so my pay and benefits should be guaranteed, too,” Logan said in comments emailed by the union. “Right now they can just change things whenever they feel like it, and that’s stressful. With a contract, you’ve got it in writing. You know where you stand.”

On-the-job-safety surfaced as another key issue for pro-union workers. The company says workplace safety is its top priority.

The company said it wants to maintain a “direct relationship” with its employees. When battery production started, BlueOval SK CEO Michael Adams said it is “creating good-paying, American jobs” while “strengthening the domestic supply chain and driving the transition to zero-emissions transportation.”

The battery complex includes two manufacturing plants but production has started at just one of them.

The fate of BlueOval is important to Gov. Beshear, a potential White House contender in 2028 who openly touts his pro-union credentials. He said the BlueOval SK project “sparked a surge of new investment and job announcements that placed Kentucky at the center of EV-related innovation.”

And organized labor has made inroads in the South in places that are not too different from BlueOval.

Workers at a General Motors joint venture electric vehicle battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, joined the union. Workers at a Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, also voted to unionize. In Ohio, workers at another GM joint venture electric vehicle battery factory voted to join the UAW.

The union lost an organizing vote at two Mercedes factories in Alabama last year.

Domestic EV battery production is ramping up as the push toward electrification of the auto industry reaches a crossroads and as Chinese automakers expand across the globe, offering affordable electric vehicles and superfast charging stations.

Despite the unwinding by President Donald Trump of incentives meant to juice electric vehicles sales, the transition by Big Detroit automakers from internal combustion engines to electric is happening. Trump’s massive tax and spending law targets EV incentives, including the imminent removal of a credit that saves buyers up to $7,500 on a new electric car.

Ford recently said it will invest nearly $2 billion retooling a Louisville, Kentucky, plant to produce electric vehicles that it says will be more affordable, more profitable to build and will outcompete rival models.

The first EV to be produced by the revamped Louisville production process will be a midsize, four-door electric pickup truck in 2027 for domestic and international markets, the company said. The electric trucks will be powered by lower-cost batteries made at a factory in Michigan. Ford previously announced a $3 billion investment to build the battery factory.

The unionization vote in Kentucky may not be known until late Wednesday.

TORONTO — Air Canada said Tuesday it will gradually restart operations after reaching an agreement with the union for 10,000 flight attendants to end a strike.

The union first announced the agreement early Tuesday after Air Canada and the union resumed talks late Monday for the first time since the strike began over the weekend. The strike is affecting about 130,000 travelers a day at the peak of the summer travel season.

Canada’s largest airline said flights will start resuming Tuesday evening.

The union said the agreement will guarantee members pay for work performed while planes are on the ground, resolving one of the major issues that drove the strike.

“Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power,” the union said in a statement. “When our rights were taken away, we stood strong, we fought back — and we secured a tentative agreement that our members can vote on.”

Chief executive Michael Rousseau said restarting a major carrier is a complex undertaking and said regular service may require seven to 10 days. Some flights will be canceled until the schedule is stabilized.

“Full restoration may require a week or more, so we ask for our customers’ patience and understanding over the coming days,” Rousseau said in a statement.

The airline said mediation discussions “were begun on the basis that the union commit to have the airline’s 10,000 flight attendants immediately return to work.” Air Canada declined to comment further on the agreement until the ratification process is complete. It noted a strike or lockout is not possible during this time.

The agreement followed the union’s declaration that the flight attendants wouldn’t return to work even though the strike was declared illegal.

Earlier, Air Canada said rolling cancellations would now extend through Tuesday afternoon after the union defied a second return-to-work order.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board had declared the strike illegal Monday and ordered the flight attendants back on the job. But the union said it would defy the directive. Union leaders also ignored a weekend order to submit to binding arbitration and end the strike by Sunday afternoon.

The board is an independent administrative tribunal that interprets and applies Canada’s labor laws. The government ordered the board to intervene.

Labor leaders objected to the Canadian government’s repeated use of a law that cuts off workers’ right to strike and forces them into arbitration, a step the government took in recent years with workers at ports, railways and elsewhere.

“Your right to vote on your wages was preserved,” the union said in a post on its website.

Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day. The airline estimated Monday that 500,000 customers would be affected by flight cancellations.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that as of Monday afternoon, Air Canada had called off at least 1,219 domestic flights and 1,339 international flights since last Thursday, when the carrier began gradually suspending its operations ahead of the strike and lockout that began early Saturday.

Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Canada’s largest, said it will deploy additional staff to assist passengers and support startup operations.

Passengers whose flights are impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s website or mobile app, according to Air Canada.

TORONTO — TORONTO (AP) — Air Canada said it plans to resume flights on Sunday after the Canadian government intervened and forced the airline and its striking flight attendants back to work and into arbitration.

The strike stranded more than 100,000 travelers around the world during the peak summer travel season.

The country’s largest airline said in a release that the first flights will resume Sunday evening but that it will take several days before its operations return to normal. It said some flights will be canceled over the next seven to 10 days until the schedule is stabilized.

Less than 12 hours after workers walked off the job, Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered the 10,000 flight attendants back to work, saying now is not the time to take risks with the economy and noting the unprecedented tariffs the U.S. has imposed on Canada. Hajdu referred the work stoppage to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

The airline said Sunday the Canada Industrial Relations Board has extended the term of the existing collective agreement until a new one is determined by the arbitrator.

The shutdown of Canada’s largest airline early Saturday was impacting about 130,000 people a day. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.

According to numbers from aviation analytics provider Cirium, Air Canada had canceled a total of 671 flights by Saturday afternoon — following 199 on Friday. And another 96 flights scheduled for Sunday were already suspended.

The bitter contract fight escalated Friday as the union turned down Air Canada’s prior request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which allows a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.

Flight attendants walked off the job around 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports.

Last year, the government forced the country’s two major railroads into arbitration with their labor union during a work stoppage. The union for the rail workers is suing, arguing the government is removing a union’s leverage in negotiations.

The Business Council of Canada had urged the government to impose binding arbitration in this case, too. And the Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the intervention.

Hajdu maintained that her Liberal government is not anti-union, saying it is clear the two sides are at an impasse.

Passengers whose flights are impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s website or mobile app, according to Air Canada.

The airline said it would also offer alternative travel options through other Canadian and foreign airlines when possible. Still, it warned that it could not guarantee immediate rebooking because flights on other airlines are already full “due to the summer travel peak.”

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal.

Both sides have said they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren’t in the air.

The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions, over four years, that it said “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada.”

But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first year didn’t go far enough because of inflation.

TORONTO — Air Canada suspended operations as more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike early Saturday after a deadline to reach a deal passed, leaving travelers around the world stranded and scrambling during the peak summer travel season.

Canadian Union of Public Employees spokesman Hugh Pouliot confirmed the strike had started after no deal was reached, and the airline said shortly after that it would halt operations.

A bitter contract fight between Canada’s largest airline and the union representing 10,000 of its flight attendants escalated Friday as the union turned down the airline’s request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which would eliminate its right to strike and allow a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.

Flight attendants walked off the job around 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports.

Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu met with both the airline and union on Friday night and urged them to work harder to reach a deal “once and for all.”

“It is unacceptable that such little progress has been made. Canadians are counting on both parties to put forward their best efforts,” Hajdu said in a statement posted on social media.

Pouliot, the spokesman for the union, said the union had a meeting with Hajdu and representatives from Air Canada earlier Friday evening.

The federal government forced the country’s two major railroads into arbitration with their labor union last year during a work stoppage. The union that represents rail workers is suing, arguing the government is removing a union’s leverage in negotiations.

The Business Council of Canada has urged the government to impose binding arbitration in this case, too.

“At a time when Canada is dealing with unprecedented pressures on our critical economic supply chains, the disruption of national air passenger travel and cargo transport services would cause immediate and extensive harm to all Canadians,” chief executive Goldy Hyder said in a statement.

A complete shutdown will impact about 130,000 people a day, and some 25,000 Canadians may be stranded abroad daily. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.

Canada is the second-largest country in the world and flying is often the only viable option.

Montreal resident Alex Laroche, 21, and his girlfriend had been saving since Christmas for their European vacation. Now their $8,000 trip with nonrefundable lodging is on the line as they wait to hear from Air Canada about the fate of their Saturday night flight to Nice, France.

How long the airline’s planes will be grounded remains to be seen, but Air Canada Chief Operating Officer Mark Nasr has said it could take up to a week to fully restart operations once a tentative deal is reached.

Passengers whose travel is impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s website or mobile app, according to Air Canada.

The airline said it would also offer alternative travel options through other Canadian and foreign airlines when possible. But it warned that it could not guarantee immediate rebooking because flights on other airlines are already full “due to the summer travel peak.”

Laroche said he considered booking new flights with a different carrier, but he said most of them are nearly full and cost more than double the $3,000 they paid for their original tickets.

“At this point, it’s just a waiting game,” he said.

Laroche said he was initially upset over the union’s decision to go on strike, but that he had a change of heart after reading about the key issues at the center of the contract negotiations, including the issue of wages.

“Their wage is barely livable,” Laroche said.

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal.

Both sides say they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren’t in the air.

The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions over four years, that it said “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada.”

But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first year didn’t go far enough because of inflation. ___

Airlines reporter Rio Yamat reported from Las Vegas.