Federal workers mobilizing over Phoenix: union

Frustrated by the Liberal government’s inability to fix the Phoenix pay system, federal public servants are mobilizing ahead of the 2019 election.

“In Quebec, the mobilization is starting,” Magali Picard of the Public Service Alliance of Canada said in Montreal on Wednesday. “If the government wants to maintain 40 seats in Quebec, they better fix Phoenix because our people are going to be serious in the upcoming election campaign.”

About 180,000 workers — half of all federal public servants — have reported being overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all since Phoenix went live nearly two years ago.

A report by the auditor general in November indicated that, as of June 2017, 59,000 employees owed the government a total of $295 million as a result of overpayments. Another 51,000 were underpaid and owed $228 million at that time, the report said.

The union is collecting signatures for a petition demanding the government fix the problems.

Of the 6,200 signatures collected, 60 per cent are from Quebec.

“Our people are exasperated,” Picard said. “They don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

She gave the example of one federal employee who mistakenly received $30,000 in his bank account. When he called his employer to say he would write a cheque, he was told he had to reimburse $39,000 — the gross amount.

“We’re telling the government, ‘It’s unacceptable that workers are advancing you money,’ ” she said.