March 13, 2025
Participants for AMFA
Bret Oestreich – National President
Earl Clark – Region I Director
Will Abbott – Region II Director
Tony Christner – Airline Representative
Lucas Middlebrook – Legal Counsel
Peter Manikowski – Economist
Participants for Sun Country Airlines
Kristen Peterson – Sr. Director, Labor & Employment
Jacki Thompson – Legal Counsel
Scott Bjergo – Director of Outstation Maintenance
Brian Scudds – Sr. Manager Labor Relations
Roy Fan – Financial Planning & Analysis
The AMFA-SCA Negotiating Committee (“Committee”) is providing this update to the membership at Sun Country Airlines (“Sun Country”). This is the only official source of negotiating communications by the Committee.
The parties met in Chicago for a three-day mediated bargaining session on February 25-27. To start Day 1, AMFA presented a counterproposal on the non-economic issues that remained open in Article 12 – Vacations. The counterproposal contained alignment with the Company on issues such as vacation bidding and requests. However, the parties remained apart with respect to how vacation hours would be charged to Employees on certain shifts when taking vacation and the payout of vacation to an Employee leaving the service of the Company. The parties engaged in a productive off-the-record discussion and then each side caucused to prepare additional proposals. In the afternoon, the Company presented a counterproposal on the non-economic issues within Article 12 – Vacations and presented non-economic counters on Article 20 – Travel/Moving Expenses and Article 25 – Union Representation. The parties discussed these counters and concluded for the day.
The parties spent the morning of Day 2 in caucus. In the afternoon, AMFA presented counterproposals on Article 20 – Travel/Moving Expenses and Article 25 – Union Representation. Some of the open issues contained in the Article 20 counter included jumpseat access, travel for certain Union Representatives, and transportation privileges on the Sun Country system for Employees and retirees. AMFA’s counter on Article 25 – Union Representation addressed topics such as non-Employee AMFA Representative access to Sun Country property and handling of grievances and other matters by Sun Country Employee Union Representatives. In addition, each counterproposal indicated paragraphs within the article identified as economic issues to be held for future economic discussions.
In the morning of Day 3, AMFA returned another counterproposal on the non-economic issues contained within Article 12 – Vacations. This counter contained generalized cleanup from previous areas of agreement, confirmed the parties’ alignment on payout of vacation when leaving the service of the Company, proposed new language on how vacation hours would be charged to Employees when their scheduled shift exceeds ten (10) hours, and counter-proposed language to establish a minimum number of Employees (on a shift, in each classification, in any bid location) that would be permitted to take vacation at any given time.
The parties took a short caucus, and upon return, the Company presented counterproposals on the non-economic components of Article 20 – Travel/Moving Expenses and had questions related to Article 25 – Union Representation. The Company’s non-economic counter on Article 20 – Travel/Moving Expenses contained alignment (absent minor cleanup) on issues such as Employee/Retiree transportation privileges and the travel of certain Union Representatives on the Sun Country system. However, the parties remained apart on the issue of jumpseat access.
Upon return from a short caucus, AMFA presented a counterproposal to the non-economic items within Article 20 – Travel/Moving Expenses. Outside of the jumpseat access issue, the parties appeared aligned (absent a few cleanup items) on the non-economic issues within Article 20. The Company then presented its counterproposal to Article 25 – Union Representation, which included a few minor language adjustments but also found areas of alignment on most of the non-economic issues. AMFA quickly turned a counterproposal to Article 25, and with that proposal the parties were in tentative agreement (TA) as to the non-economic areas of that article. Prior to concluding the session, the Company presented a counterproposal to the non-economic issues within Article 12 – Vacations, which agreed to AMFA’s last proposal regarding vacation hours charged to Employees on shifts of 10 hours or greater and the minimum number of Employees allowed to take vacation at any given time. The parties confirmed they had reached a TA on the non-economic items within Article 12 – Vacations.
The parties were able to reach TA on the non-economic issues within two separate articles during this session: Article 12 – Vacations and Article 25 – Union Representation. This productivity was due, in part, to AMFA’s suggestion to defer certain issues within each article to a comprehensive economic discussion. We believe this approach will bring the parties to that economic discussion sooner, which will help move the parties to a full TA on your first CBA. We call upon the Company to continue with this productive approach at the next session.
The next mediated bargaining session is scheduled for March 24-26 in Chicago. If you have any questions related to negotiations, please reach out to your ALR, Tony Christner.
Remember - stay engaged, remain informed, and continue to support the Negotiating Committee. Our solidarity will produce a CBA that your hard work has earned.
Fraternally,
Your AMFA–SCA Negotiating Committee
