Over 80,000 employees affected by Phoenix pay system

Recently, the federal officials have expressed their apology to over 80,000 employees who have had problems with the new system called Phoenix. The officials promised to fix the failed system as soon as possible as it affects the employees pay.

In a news conference, the deputy minister for Public Services and Procurement,Marie Lemay, revealed the extent of employees who were affected due to this problem, calling it as completely unacceptable.

Some of the affected parties are the 720 public servants, mostly new-hires and students, have not received their pay. There are also 1,100 individuals who have not received parental, long-term disability or severance payments, Moreover, more than 80,000 employees who are entitled to supplementary pay for extra duties, overtime or pay adjustments have problems with the system as well.

As stated by the deputy minister, the government totally underestimated the time and training needed to shift to the new system. The government is set to hire temporary compensation adviser specialists in order to make technical enhancements to the system. One of the options that the government may have to consider is to reimburse those employees who were hit with penalties for late loan payments or insufficient funds.

On the other hand, there are some reports that some federal public service employees have maxed-out credit cards, depleted savings and unpaid bills due to the new pay system. Other workers have also complained about not being paid, being underpaid, or in some cases being overpaid.

Public Works Minister Judy Foote has also opened a temporary work centre with the purpose of dealing with a growing backlog of Phoenix-related cases.

Chris Aylward, vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), doubts the measures undertaken by the government if it would really address the problems.PSACrepresents 170,000 public servants out of the total force of 300,000. They request that the Phoenix system would be taken off-line until the glitches are addressed.