Phoenix backlog bigger than ever: union

OTTAWA • Three unions are calling on the government to provide additional compensation to federal public servants, as issues with the Phoenix pay system continue.

“This week marks the eighth anniversary of Phoenix,” said Chris Aylward, the national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, at a Parliament Hill news conference on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, eight years into the pay fiasco, there is nothing to celebrate, no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Since its launch in 2016, the number of unresolved problems has piled up to 444,000. Aylward said they’ve “never seen this many cases in the backlog.”

Federal public service unions said in a press release Tuesday the standard waiting period for payroll problems to be addressed is two years.

PSAC, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada and the Canadian Association of Professional Employees want the federal government to negotiate an extension of earlier agreements to compensate public servants for damages.

“The pay problems haven’t stopped,” Aylward said in an interview. “Every single pay week, we still have pay problems, and we’re years out from getting a new pay system.”

Aylward said his union negotiated an earlier agreement that gave members a $2,500 settlement for problems that happened between 2016 and 2020.

“Basically, we’re saying it’s time for us to negotiate another set of damages for the last four years.”

Aylward said public servants are continuing to experience the same problems as they did in earlier years. “Not a whole lot has changed.”

While there aren’t many cases of people who aren’t getting paid at all, PSAC members are still being overpaid or underpaid, and it takes two years for someone’s pay file to catch up if they move departments or agencies, he said.

“(For) somebody that’s contemplating retirement, that can be a real nightmare, not knowing whether my pension is going to be correct or not because of the pay issues,” he said. “There’s a lot of anxiety out there for sure.”

The Phoenix system is “still a mess,” he said.

“When the federal government can’t pay its own employees properly and on time, there has to be consequences for that.”

Aylward also criticized the government for focusing on claiming overpayments before the expiry of a six-year limitation period, a push that began in 2022.

Employers began asking PSAC members to repay hundreds of dollars from years earlier — but without being able to explain why the overpayment occurred or even what paycheque it was on.

“Yet they expect our members just to sign on the dotted line to say yes, I owe you this money,” Aylward said.