Federal workers call on government to fix issues surrounding Phoenix payroll system

On the last pay day before Christmas, supporters and federal public service workers affected by the troubled Phoenix pay system rallied in Vancouver.

Workers say they want the government to fix the problems with the federal government's automated payroll system, which according to Canada's auditor general has left more than 150,000 public servants nearly half of the federal workforce underpaid, overpaidor not paid at all.

• Government won't scrap Phoenix, Commons committee told

Sky Belt is a single motherand works in administrationwith the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

She says she hasn't been paid any overtime or acting pay for the entire year, money she saves up for Christmas presents for her son.

"I'm ending up having to borrow funds from other people in order to have a Christmas for my son," said Belt.

"Unfortunately, not all members are in that circumstance where they can borrow the money, and they're having to forgo Christmas altogether or presents, just because our payroll system is not working."

Government addressesworkers' concerns

Public Services and Procurement MinisterCarla Qualtroughaddressed some of the issues in an interview with CBC News.

"This is really heartbreaking ...Rest assured this keeps me awake at night, and this is my number one priority," said Qualtrough.

She says the government has hired about 290new compensation advisors to help with payroll transactions and questionsand hascommitted to hire another 300 that will start work by early January, increasing the total number of compensation advisors working on the pay system to 1,300 or 1,400.

In regards to damages requested by workers to cover out of pocket expenses and financial consequences due to mispayments, Qualtrough says the Treasury Board is having discussions withvarious public service unions on that issue, but they haven't reached an agreement yet.

Qualtroughsays the government is workingto establish better communication between compensation staff and various human resources staff to help workers navigate thecomplicated system.

For those workers who soughtemergency payment assistance from the government to cover costs amid pay issues, Qualtrough says the government will work on repayment schedules for employees, so they don't have to pay back money all at once.

As for the issue of workers being overpaidand then asked to repay the government the pretax amount,Qualtrough says she had a meeting with the Canada Revenue Agency Thursday to see how they can resolvethe problem.

She says her hope is that the government will be in a position tonot recover the gross overpaymentuntil the taxed amount is returned to workers.

Qualtrough says the government is working with unions and holding IBM to account to get the system stabilized.

• Phoenix payroll mess will take several years and more than $540M to fix, spending watchdog says

As of last month, Auditor General Michael Ferguson said the value of outstanding pay errors, including those who have been paid too little or too much, amounts to nearly half a billion dollars as of June 2017.

The government says it will have a new plan in place with timelines by June 30, 2018.