July 12, 2025

Participants for AMFA
Lee Seham – Acting Committee Chair
Ian Evershed – Rergion IV Director
Justin Lang – Airline Representative
Michael Emery – Negotiator-at-Large
Samuel Seham – Legal Counsel

Participants for Jazz Aviation
Suzanne Asseff – Director Employee Relations
Kal Rebin – VP Maintenance
Mark Lenglet – Director Line Maintenance
Maze Hobeyn – Director Components & Stores
Stephen Boa – Manager Labour Relations
Christine Stolarz – Employee Relations Admin/Analyst 
Kris Langevin – Manager Labour Relations

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

On July 7-9, 2025, representatives from Jazz and AMFA met in Montreal for the second round of collective agreement negotiations. The negotiations were led by AMFA General Counsel Lee Seham and Jazz Director, Employee Relations Suzanne Asseff.  During the July 7-9 sessions, rank-and-file observers attended the negotiations and contributed valuable information during Committee caucuses. The entire Committee also traveled to the Montreal hangar to meet with members and receive their comments.

Due to the carrier’s sub-market compensation of Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AMEs), the carrier suffers from a high rate of attrition of its licensed personnel. Consequently, over the last five years, the proportion of maintenance work performed by relatively inexperienced, unlicensed Apprentices has increased. In addition, the shortage of senior AMEs on staff inherently creates situations where AMEs may be pressured into performing maintenance tasks for which they do not have sufficient experience.

This round of negotiations focused on member-generated proposals related to the above issues.[1]  The proposals sought to amend Article 4 of the collective agreement to provide for:

1. the reduction of the Crew Chief to employee ratio from 12:1 to 10:1 in order to address the growing conflict between the Crew Chief’s oversight of Apprentice maintenance work and the performance of their administrative work;
2. establishing a maximum ceiling of fifty percent for Apprentices on a crew; and
3. allowing an employee to decline to perform work outside of their job classification where they consider the work beyond their competency.

The Company initially rejected all three AMFA proposals and even proposed increasing the Crew Chief/employee ratio to 14:1. In defense of its position, the Company stated it does not expect or desire Crew Chiefs to engage in the mentoring of Apprentices; rather, such mentoring should be performed by AMEs on the crew. Of course, that begged the question of how AME-Apprentice mentoring could be effectively accomplished on crews predominantly composed of Apprentices.[2]

After three full days of negotiation, the parties signed off on a revised Article 4, which:

• Provides for the retention of the current 12:1 Crew Chief to employee ratio;
• Provides that, within 1 year of the effective date of the new Agreement, no crew will exceed 50% apprentices; and,
• In the event of short-term absences due to illness or injury, an employee may be assigned work of another classification provided that the employee is qualified and has recent experience, or alternatively considers himself/herself competent, to perform that work.

Both parties also acknowledged that the recruitment and retention of experienced AMEs necessary to ensure reliable aviation maintenance practices will require a significant increase in compensation.  The negotiation of key economic issues is on the horizon.

Stay engaged, remain informed, and continue to support the Negotiating Committee – your support strengthens their ability to secure 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 Line Negotiating Committee