Ottawa, July 6, 2016 – The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) is calling on the federal government to pay interest on delayed or underpaid paycheques due to problems with its Phoenix pay system.
“Some of our members have had to dig into their savings or use their credit cards or lines of credit just to make ends meet”, said PIPSC President Debi Daviau. “I agree with Scott Brison that 'this is totally unacceptable.’”
PIPSC's recommendation would see the government mitigate the interest fees that public service professionals have had to incur due to pay problems.
PIPSC is also calling on the government to immediately contact all of Canada’s major financial institutions and utilities and urge them to show flexibility towards individuals who are experiencing cash flow issues caused by Phoenix.
“No one should be penalized for missed payments or for having insufficient funds due to circumstances completely beyond their control," said Daviau. "Hard working public service professionals should not be paying the price for the failure of the new pay system.”
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada represents some 55,000 scientists and other professionals across Canada’s public sector, all of whom deserve and expect to be paid on time.
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For further information: Pierre Villon 613-228-6310 ext 4928 (office) or 613-794-9369 (cell.) pvillon@pipsc.ca
Re: Loans to Members facing financial hardship due to pay transformation system
Dear Members,
Your Institute’s Board of Directors has approved a loan program for members experiencing financial hardship caused by problems with the new Phoenix pay system. As your union we feel we can help members in this time of need and uncertainty.
Attached are the guidelines for the loan program and an application.
As with any workplace issue you are having please contact your local Employment Relations Officer (ERO) in the regional office nearest to you.
Debi Daviau
Guidelines
Guidelines on Loans to Members Facing Financial Difficulties as a Result of the Pay Transformation
This policy is effective June 14, 2016.
On June 9, 2016, the Institute’s Board of Directors passed a resolution giving the President the authority to approve loans to members facing financial difficulties as a result of the pay transformation.
The objective of these guidelines are to provide a framework for the provision and administration of loans to members whose base pay has stopped being issued or has been issued in a drastically reduced amount as a result of the Government’s pay transformation initiative.
The President shall be responsible for reviewing loan applications and providing approval in accordance with these Guidelines.
A member will be eligible for a loan under these Guidelines if he/she:
i) Is a member of a bargaining unit for which the Institute is the Bargaining Agent;
ii) Has provided sufficient information to establish that his/her pay has not been issued or has been significantly reduced for some time as a result of the Government’s pay transformation initiative;
iii) Has provided sufficient information to establish that the reduced pay or absence of pay is causing significant hardship;
iv) Signs a promissory note and repayment schedule in a form required by the Institute.
Upon request, the member will provide any financial or other information required to process the application and that may be required from time to time by the Institute.
The maximum loan granted shall not normally exceed $5,000 and will be interest free.
The loan will become payable immediately upon receipt by the member of backpay owed by the employer and, in any event, no later than 6 months from the issuance of the loan.
As many of you know, we remain plagued with problems concerning the government’s new Phoenix pay system. Despite our continued efforts we still have members going without pay or experiencing discrepancies on their pay cheques. This seems especially true if they work shift work or have any irregularities to their pay. We know that in particular our nurses, who provide critical services to First Nations patients and who work long hours on shifts, are being disproportionately affected.
I had the opportunity this week to personally express our members’ concerns directly to Treasury Board President Scott Brison and senior officials from the Secretariat. He has asked us to send urgent and serious cases directly to his officials and they will work to provide help. As with any issue we encourage you to contact your local Employment Relations Officer (ERO) in the regional office nearest to you to relay this information.
I also took the time last week to again write Minister Brison and urged him to take urgent action.
In order to help you pursue pay problems please take the following steps so we can ensure timely follow up to resolve your case. We encourage members who have an issue with their pay to submit all requests by email to the Pay Centre (paycentre.centredepaye@pwgsc-tpsgc.gc.ca), along with the required Pay Action Request (PAR) form. If a request is received without this form or mandatory fields are not completed, it will be rejected by the system automatically and returned to the sender.
To request a status of a Phoenix case that was previously submitted, please complete the Phoenix Case Status Request form. Please also inform your local Employment Relations Officer (ERO) in the regional office nearest to you so we can assist and monitor all problems. I will continue to look for every opportunity to pressure this government to act quickly and effectively to solve pay issues.
Debi Daviau,
President
PDF Version
June 3, 2016
Hon. Scott Brison
President of the Treasury Board
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Strategic Communications and Ministerial Affairs
90 Elgin Street, 8th Floor
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R5
I am writing again today concerning the Phoenix Pay System and my members’ timely access to their pay. We have had the opportunity to meet recently with Treasury Board officials and the Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada to express our concerns. We urge you to continue to find ways to ensure public servants have access to responsive help when they discover problems with their pay.
I have heard from countless members of the pay problems they are facing. These include delayed pay (often over consecutive pay periods), overpayments, and much evidence of a system that is not meeting the multiple pay situations, such as shift work, our members experience. As you can imagine, irregular pay can result in direct payments for mortgages, utilities, childcare and other day-to-day expenses being bounced and resulting in direct costs to our members.
In particular, we are still hearing of cases where employees are not being paid for overtime or acting pay and delays for resumption of pay when they return from a leave such as maternity. Another issue that deserves your immediate attention concerns Records of Employment. We have a number of cases of members waiting for their ROE to be issued so they can apply for Disability Insurance. This problem needs to be given greater priority.
We believe ongoing attention is still required to ensure that all pay and administrative problems employees are facing receives swift action.
The current situation is unacceptable and must be fixed as soon as possible. I look forward to your prompt reply and to learn what steps your department is taking to continue to fix this situation.
On behalf of our members, the Institute continues to express our very serious concerns with the new Phoenix pay system. The government has acknowledged these concerns but insists there are steps in place to resolve them as outlined.
We encourage members who have an issue with their pay to submit all requests by email to the Pay Centre, along with the required Pay Action Request (PAR) Form. If a request is received without this form or mandatory fields are not completed, it will be rejected by the system automatically and returned to the sender.
We will continue to monitor this issue closely and to press the employer to resolve these issues quickly.
In the event that your pay issue is not resolved, we encourage you to contact your local Employment Relations Officer (ERO) in the regional office nearest to you to help resolve the issue and access emergency or priority pay where the situation warrants.
Since writing to you last week about problems with the federal government’s new Phoenix pay system, I have met personally with both Treasury Board officials and the Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) to express our very serious concerns with the new system and to urge that its continued rollout be delayed until the current problems can be resolved.
The government has acknowledged these concerns but has said it will continue to rollout the new system. We have been assured that these problems can be resolved. The experience of the Institute, and of other federal unions, is that the new system is causing a wide range of problems in pay for federal employees – from numerous instances of underpayment and overpayment to extreme cases of employees not being paid for weeks. As a result, we are concerned that these problems may persist and even increase in the coming weeks, despite the hiring of new case administrators to assist with resolving problems.
I would therefore like to urge all members who do encounter problems with their pay due to the new system to carefully monitor their pay records and, in the event of discrepancies or other problems, to email the Pay Centre directly, notifying them of the problem. The government claims that doing so will result in an answer to specific issues within 48 hours.
It goes without saying that the employees at the Miramichi pay centre are not to blame for the current situation. These problems have their origin in ill-conceived cuts and an ongoing failure by the Employer to adequately staff and resource workers at the Pay Centre.
We will continue to monitor this issue closely and to press the Employer to resolve these issues quickly.
In the event that your pay issue is not resolved, I encourage you to contact your local Employment Relations Officer (ERO) in the regional office nearest to you to help resolve the issue and access emergency or priority pay where the situation warrants.
Federal employees are understandably concerned about the ongoing consolidation of the government’s payroll services and the introduction of the Phoenix system. It’s no secret that this initiative has been beset by difficulties since the first government departments began their transition to the new system a couple of years ago. While the Treasury Board (TB) has tried to downplay the extent of these problems, issues such as the timely payment of public servants, pay errors, and the lack of resources and training available to employees involved in the project were so widespread that bargaining agents met with TB representatives at the time to outline their concerns over the situation.
In this context, I share many of our members’ concerns at the planned transition of over 60 remaining federal organizations to the Phoenix system later this April. I have therefore written to Judy Foote, Minister of Public Services and Procurement urging her to postpone this transition until these issues have been resolved. In the meantime, the Institute will continue to closely monitor the situation in the months ahead and, together with other bargaining agents, intervene as needed.
Better Together!
Debi Daviau,
President
PDF Version
April 15, 2016
The Hon Judy Foote
Minister of Public Services and Procurement
11 Laurier Street Place du Portage, Phase III, Floor 18A1
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0S5
I am writing today concerning a critical issue to my members, the timely access to their pay. As I am sure you can understand, this is an issue of much concern to them and their families. As the President of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), I represent upwards of 50,000 employees in the federal public service and I thank you for the opportunity to bring this matter to your attention.
We understand that the workers at the Pay Centre in Miramichi have been doing their best to pay federal public employees in a timely and accurate fashion. Nevertheless, we believe that inadequate resources and flaws in the new Phoenix pay system are preventing this from happening.
I have heard from countless members of the pay problems they are facing. These include delayed pay (often over consecutive pay periods), overpayments, and much evidence of a system that is not meeting the multiple pay situations, such as shift work, our members experience. As you can imagine, irregular pay can result in direct payments for mortgages, utilities, childcare and other day-to-day expenses being bounced and resulting in direct costs to our members.
We believe immediate action is required and want to first call on your government to delay the next phase of transfers to the pay centre scheduled for this month. We also would like to see departments put in place a process for advancing emergency funds for those employees who are forced to go without pay because of problems with the system.
The current situation is unacceptable and must be fixed as soon as possible. I look forward to your prompt reply and to learn what steps your department is taking to remedy this situation.
