With just days until Christmas, frustrated federal employees again rallied in front of Chilliwack-Hope MP Mark Strahl鈥檚 constituency office Wednesday over the ongoing Phoenix payroll system debacle.
About a dozen employees from worksites including Mountain Institution in Agassiz and the RCMP鈥檚 training centre in Chilliwack gathered to wave placards protesting the ongoing and now notorious payroll system that鈥檚 shortchanging thousands of workers across Canada.
鈥淭he numbers we are starting to see are in the $20,000 and $30,000 range,鈥� said Kirsty Havard, regional vice-president of the Union of Solicitor General Employees (USGE), which in the new year will be renamed the Union of Safety and Justice Employees (USJE).
鈥淣one of it is being corrected. It鈥檚 bad.鈥�
Havard said she was dealing with one employee owed $25,000 in back pay only to get a recent correction of just $11,000. She can鈥檛 figure out why he did not receive the full amount owed.
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鈥淎n apology doesn鈥檛 pay my bills or my mortgage,鈥� read a sign one held by a worker at the rally. 鈥淔ix Phoenix now!鈥�
The Phoenix computerized pay system, commissioned by the previous Conservative government, was implemented in February 2016 by the Liberal government. It involved replacing some 2,700 payroll specialists across the country with the automated system, run by 500 people in Miramichi, N.B.
Since the Phoenix payroll system was put in place, thousands of employees have been receiving incorrect paycheques and hundreds, no pay at all.
There are 300,000 employees of the federal government and six months into the program, 80,000 of them had problems with their pay, usually being shortchanged. Some received emergency salary advances that were clawed back once some paycheques were fixed.
Some employees even received too much pay, and all employees end up needing to keep strict track of the complicated pay stubs they receive.
And it鈥檚 not getting any better, the workers at Strahl鈥檚 office Wednesday said.
鈥淭here is no end in sight, unfortunately,鈥� Havard said.
Havard said the USGE under the umbrella of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) calls on the government to do five things: hire more workers in pay centres to expand the compensation capacity; recognize that damages are owed to workers impacted by Phoenix; dedicate staff to help employees figure out what they are owed; stop recoveries of emergency salary advances until employees receive full back pay; and recover only the net of overpayments, instead of the gross pay.
The rally at Strahl鈥檚 office this week comes two months after a similar one by different USGE employees in October.
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At that rally, Mike Britton who is a shift worker at Kent Institution and president of the local branch of the USGE said there is also a trickle-down effect to casual employees, some of whom haven鈥檛 been paid at all. With all the uncertainty, when they are looking for a new worker to fill a casual employment role it creates an undesirable work environment.
Some issues employees are still experiencing, according to Britton, include: underpayment, pay retraction, incorrect pay for work performed, incorrect pay for statutory holidays and incorrect pay for overtime.
As for Strahl鈥檚 response, he is supportive of the employees and he went so far as to initiated by Erin Enneddam from Chilliwack.
The petition calls upon the federal government to abolish Phoenix and replace it with something that works 鈥渁nd to stop wasting tax payers money.鈥�
As of Dec 13, the petition had received 1,357 signatures, 292 from B.C.
鈥淭he Official Opposition will continue to press the government for answers on their progress on fixing the system and thank the employees for taking direct action to draw attention to this ongoing fiasco,鈥� Strahl said.
paul.henderson@theprogress.com
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