Dear Members,

We are pleased to share with you news that the Treasury Board is now directing all departments to issue salary advances to employees who are experiencing missing or reduced pay due to problems with the Phoenix pay system.

I held a press conference on January 12 to call for immediate action on this front. We are pleased that our union’s call for systems to help those facing hardship due to ongoing problems with Phoenix will now be better addressed.

Included here is the Treasury Board’s memo to Deputy Heads, which encourages them to use priority payments for people who are experiencing hardship due to pay problems. We had heard from members that they were suffering often because of a lack of access to emergency pay. We appreciate that, following our urging, the Treasury Board has taken steps to address this gap.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please call your regional office to speak to one of our Employment Relations Officers.

Better Together!

Debi

Dear Members,

As we approach the end of the year I wanted to take the opportunity to update you about the Phoenix pay system and the steps PIPSC has taken to try and find immediate and lasting solutions to the fiasco we find ourselves in.

Despite our request in April that further phasing in of Phoenix be halted the government went ahead with the project. Since then our Institute activists, staff and leadership have been consumed with assisting members with pay issues. Countless members have experienced no pay, missing pay, overpayments, and others have gone without parental or disability benefits due to systemic problems with the pay system. Trying to navigate how to file a complaint has been cumbersome to say the least. It is shameful and unacceptable that we are so many months down the road and still have countless cases unresolved.

Over this period we have used a number of methods to pressure the government to act, including lobbying Ministers, MPs and senior government officials, communicating with the media, joining forces with other unions and escalating individual critical cases with the employer. We have advocated on behalf of members at consultation tables, joint union management task forces and in particular for groups like our northern nurses who have been severely impacted by the pay transformation. After mounting pressure Health Canada has dedicated its own resources in the pay centre in order to help resolve their unique situation. Over the summer, PIPSC offered its assistance to students who were disproportionately hit by Phoenix problems, providing guidance on accessing support from the Miramichi pay centre and even passing along to Treasury Board and other senior officials especially urgent cases we felt the government should expedite. We were able to see resolution of the vast majority of student pay issues before the start of the new school year. We hope this work shows to the next generation the value of having a union behind you.

With pressure and advocacy from PIPSC we saw the creation of a claims office at the Treasury Board to reimburse public servants who have had out of pocket expenses due to Phoenix-related issues. In addition, your union took the step to issue loans to members impacted by Phoenix. To date we have issued 14 loans and will continue to offer the loan program until we see the Phoenix system functioning as it should. As overpayments have been a consistent problem with Phoenix tax issues have become another area of concern. With the expertise PIPSC brings to the table on tax issues we worked with Treasury Board and the Canadian Revenue Agency to try and mitigate the impact on members. We held a Halloween rally with our own grim version of the Phoenix bird when the government missed its own self-imposed deadline to clear the backlog. The rally garnered significant media attention, keeping the issue alive in the eyes of politicians, media and the wider public.

We are finally starting to see some movement on putting better interim solutions forward. We have long advocated that the government’s policy of issuing emergency pay only to those suffering no-pay situations is unfair and leaves many others in hardship. We hope to hear soon that priority payments may also be issued to those experiencing hardship due to underpayments. We have also heard from many senior departmental officials that that they want to be part of the solution. We have relayed that message to the Treasury Board and PSPC and steps are now being taken to allow departments to input some information in the system to help speed up processing times.

As with too many recent IT transformations, our pay system’s problems are to a great extent due to the misguided and poorly planned outsourcing of a government project. The decision to go solely with an outside provider, IBM, and bypass our own CS community has meant that Phoenix failures are now more costly and complicated to fix. After much urging to look to its own IT community for solutions, I worked with PSPC Deputy Minister Marie Lemay in November to put out a joint call for CS’s with PeopleSoft skills (the program Phoenix is based on) to help find solutions.

You have my word that I will continue to make fixing Phoenix my main priority in the New Year. For now, I want to thank all of the PIPSC activists, staff and leaders who have been there for our members.

As I always like to say, we are Better Together.

Happy Holidays!

Debi Daviau
President, PIPSC

Dear Members,

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with Deputy Minister Simon Kennedy to speak with him about the Phoenix pay problems our members at Health Canada are facing.

Over the last number of months we have established a very good working relationship with Mr. Kennedy and his human resources team at the department. Despite this and the best efforts of everyone involved, solving pay problems with the Phoenix pay system has proven incredibly difficult and is taking far too long.

We were pleased to know that both the Deputy Minister and the Institute agree that better access to priority or emergency pay is required. As we are well aware, not all Phoenix hardships result from receiving no pay; many, in fact, are due to going without significant parts of one’s salary for months on end. These add up to no small sum and can comprise much of an individual’s salary. We are hopeful that an expanded priority pay system can be set up and cheques issued by departments to address these types of hardship cases. It only makes sense.

We also discussed the need for departments to have better access to Phoenix and to have the ability to implement some steps directly rather than wait for the bulk of the work to be done by an over-burdened centralized pay centre. We hope this measure, once implemented, will work to curb the number of problems going forward.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank PIPSC volunteers such as Ginette Tardiff, President of the Heath Canada National Consultation Team, who have worked tirelessly to assist members in having their issues heard or simply served as someone members can speak with. They have been so generous with their time, and I deeply appreciate the work they are doing on behalf of others. I will continue to work with your representatives to ensure the government is taking every measure possible to get our members paid correctly and on time and that we have the lasting solutions to put this unacceptable debacle behind us.

As always, I encourage you to notify us of any pay problems you have by contacting your regional office and being in touch with one of our Employment Relations Officers.

Wishing you all a happy holidays, I would like to thank you for your continued work and, of course, perseverance.

Sincerely,

Debi Daviau
President, PIPSC

Collections Calls are not Legitimate

We have become aware that a PIPSC member and other public servants have recently received calls from someone identifying themselves as a collection agency. The caller says they are collecting Phoenix payments on behalf of the government. These calls are not legitimate.

Government not using collection agencies

The government has confirmed they are not using collection agencies to collect payments related to Phoenix. Please read their posting on the matter.

http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/index-eng.html

If you receive a suspicious call from an agency claiming that you need to repay an overpayment, do not provide personal information such as your address, credit card or bank account number and do not make payment arrangements with this agency. If the fraudulent agency contacts you, please report it to your local police and to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (Report an incident Section) http://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/reportincident-signalerincident/index-eng.htm and discuss it with your departmental security officer, who will guide and advise you on how to protect your personal information.

This month the Treasury Board announced the opening of a claims office to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses public servants have incurred due to problems with the Phoenix pay system.

Claim forms and Frequently Asked Questions are available on the Treasury Board website, as well as other Phoenix-related information.

NEW DEVELOPMENT

It has come to our attention that Departments are asking claimants to sign a release form which could affect their future right to grieve in relation to out-of-pocket expenses. Members should be advised that the release form should be signed only where they are satisfied that the agreed upon amount reflects the entire claim of the member relating to out-of-pocket expenses.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please call your regional office to speak to one of our Employment Relations Officers. PIPSC will work to file grievances if we are unhappy with the settlements offered. We will continue to raise issues, such as this form, in forums such as the joint union-management committee on Phoenix.

Dear National Capital Region members,

Monday October 31st isn’t just Halloween, it’s the day the government promised to finally fix the Phoenix pay system’s bagful of problems.

Unfortunately, it looks like that’s not going to happen after all, so join us for a rally in downtown Ottawa this Monday October 31st to remind the government that we’re Ready to be paid on time, every time!

We’ll be joined by our public service colleagues from other bargaining agents, including PSAC and CAPE. And in the spirit of Halloween, the Phoenix itself will be there! Wear your Ready buttons - seriously good fun for all!

When: Monday, October 31 at noon

Where: Elgin and Wellington (in front of the Prime Minister's Office)

Who: All PIPSC members are welcome

For more information, contact your local steward, email us at bettertogether@pipsc.ca, or Follow us on Twitter (@pipsc_ipfpc).

Better Together!

Debi Daviau
President

PIPSC is happy to announce that the Institute has been selected to take part in the Government of Canada’s independent review of Shared Services Canada, as a representative on Gartner Canada Co.’s panel of information technology (IT) experts. We will be sure to bring forward a message that Shared Services Canada needs both a plan and proper resources if it is to succeed. We also know that government decisions to outsource IT transformation projects have led to cost over-runs and in many cases catastrophic results.

Shared Services Canada is also undertaking a separate consultation and asking public servants from both within the department and outside it to respond. We encourage you to take the time to respond and share your views.

MEDIA ADVISORY :For Immediate Release

OTTAWA, October 5, 2016 - Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) President Debi Daviau will be available for media interviews following today’s technical briefing on the Phoenix pay system.

"With the government’s October 31^st deadline to fix the Phoenix system’s ongoing problems fast approaching, we want to make sure it is making every effort to resolve the situation once and for all," said Daviau.

PIPSC represents some 55,000 public-sector scientists and other professionals across the country, most of them employed by the federal government.

Follow us on Facebook and on Twitter (@pipsc_ipfpc)

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For further information:
Johanne Fillion
(613) 228-6310 ext 4953 (office)
or (613) 883-4900 (cell.)
jfillion@pipsc.ca