Liberals commit $16Mto replacing failed Phoenix pay system

OTTAWA• The federal government’ s disastrous Phoenix pay system is destined for the ash heap — and the Trudeau Liberals have committed to spending $16 million over the next two years looking for a replacement that can rise in its place.

The government intends to “eventually move away from Phoenix and begin de- velopment of the next generation of the federal government’s pay system,” the Liberals announced in the budget.

The move was applauded by labour groups as an important step toward ending the pay nightmares that thousands of federal employees have lived through as a result of the pay troubles created by Phoenix.

The commitment to begin development of a new pay system came just one day be- fore angry civil servants were set to protest the second anniversary of the launch of the problem-plagued system.

Starting in April, the government will begin efforts “on a way forward on a new pay system” in consultation with technology providers, pay system experts and public service unions.

In t he meantime, t he budget provided a sobering estimate of just how long it will take — and how expen- sive it will be — to deal with problems created by the current pay system.

The budget set aside an additional $ 431.4 million over six years to fix existing pay problems for more than 300,000 workers. To date, the government has earmarked more than $ 460 million to implement Phoenix and resolve some of its problems.

Since its launch in February 2016, tens of thousands of federal employees have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all.

Scrapping the failed system can’t come soon enough, said Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

“At least the government is biting the bullet and saying, ‘We’ve got to move on to build a new system,”’ Yussuff said. “I think that’s going to take some time, but we’re very pleased.”

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada ( PIPSC), one of the country’s biggest civil service unions, said in November that its members — many of them IT professionals — could build a new, properly functioning pay system within a year.

The union sat down with Treasury Board President Scott Brison in the days leading up to the budget, and said more meetings were planned in the coming weeks to talk about how to transition away from Phoenix to another system. “It’s the first time there’s been a genuine commitment to building an alternative,” said PIPSC president Debi Daviau.