August 19, 2025

Participants for AMFA
Bret Oestreich – National President
Lee Seham – Acting Committee Chair
Joel Moores – Airline Representative
Craig Clouter – Negotiator-at-Large
Samuel Seham – Legal Counsel

Participants for JTS
Kirk Newhook – VP, Employee Relations
Suzanne Asseff – Director, Employee Relations
Kal Rebin – VP, Maintenance
Steve Tully – Director, MRO
Maze Hobeyn – Director, Components & Stores
Stephen Boa – Manager, Labour Relations
Kris Langevin – Manager, Labour Relations 

The AMFA-Jazz Technical Services Negotiating Committee (the “Committee”) is providing this update to the membership at Jazz Technical Services (JTS). This is the only official source of negotiating communications.

On August 13-15, 2025, representatives from JTS and AMFA met in Halifax to engage in their fourth session of collective bargaining agreement negotiations. Negotiations were led by AMFA General Counsel Lee Seham and Jazz VP Employee Relations Kirk Newhook.

Building on the progress made by the Jazz Line Committee during negotiations on August 11-12, the Parties reached agreement on, and TA’d, an additional two contract articles[1]: Article 6 – Hours of Work and Article 14 – Cash Bank and Time Off.

With respect to Article 6, new provisions obtained in response to membership-generated proposals included:

• the elimination of all DOR references relating to scheduling;
• limiting mid-year shift schedule changes to one per year;
• increasing from time and half to double time for hours worked where an employee does not have minimum hours off prior to his/her scheduled shift or overtime shift;
• shift trade requests submitted eight (8) days or more in advance of a shift trade will be deemed approved unless management responds within two (2) business days;
• shift trade requests submitted fewer than eight (8) days in advance of the shift trade will be deemed approved unless management responds within one (1) business day;
• an employee may shift trade with him or herself once per ninety (90) days subject to Company approval, which approval may not be unreasonably withheld;
• each year all shift schedules will be opened for seniority bid in each location between October 1 and no later than October 15 (unless otherwise agreed) and the Company will pay to the Union a penalty of $500 (five hundred dollars) for each day that the shift bid is delayed; 
• the first rest period for each shift will be paid and increased from 15 to 20 minutes to allow additional time for meal preparation.

With respect to Article 14, all post-DOR references have been eliminated, and annual cash bank contributions have been increased to $8,500.

The Parties also commenced negotiations with respect to proposed revisions to Article 15 – Vacations. We regret to report that, in this context, the Company asserted that it had the right to deny any bids on full weeks where an employee did not have sufficient vacation hours to cover the week. AMFA’s negotiators advised the Company that it would consider any such bid denials to constitute violations of the collective bargaining agreement.

AMFA negotiators also passed a proposal for Article 2 – Union Recognition, which would limit subcontracting. The Company has not responded to that proposal to date.

Negotiations are scheduled to continue in Halifax on September 9 through September 11. As always, we encourage our members to attend as observers.

Stay engaged, remain informed, and continue to support the Negotiating Committee as that support increases the ability to bargain a collective agreement that your hard work deserves. Your AMFA representatives will provide regular updates throughout the negotiating process. Thank you for your support.

Fraternally,

AMFA-Jazz Technical Services Negotiating Committee