Canada Revenue Agency and the union representing taxation workers have agreed to a temporary incentive package to boost pay for current employees and recruits to cover the extra work caused by the troubled Phoenix pay system.
Union of Taxation Employees national president Marc Briere, in a letter to members posted on theunion’s website, says employees have worked hard under “stressful and demanding situations” to deal with problems created by the federal pay system, which was implemented about two years ago.
Since that time, federal employees across the country have been plagued with pay problems including complete lack of payment, significant delays, overpayment, overtime and tax errors, benefit errors and other glitches.
“In a renewed spirit of meaningful consultation with the employer, the parties agreed to a number of incentives to help enhance the recruitment and retention of our compensation advisers, and allow us to continue to address the challenging pay administration issues related to the implementation of Phoenix,” Briere wrote to union members.
“Accordingly, UTE wishes to acknowledge the employer’s cooperation and goodwill in this matter.”
The incentive package is offered to three levels of existing
compensation advisers, new recruits and former retirees who return, and includes a one-time payment of $4,000, all overtime paid at double time instead of time-and-a-half, and carry-over provisions for vacation and compensatory time.
The deal was signed Jan. 31 and expires June 1, 2018, and is retroactive to Aug. 1 of last year.
The union represents more than 25,000 employees of Canada Revenue Agency.
No one from the revenue agency or the union was available for comment on Thursday.
Recently released data shows paycheques for nine out of 10 federal civil servants in Nova Scotia have been affected.
The data showed 9,104 out of 10,095 employees working for the federal government in Nova Scotia had experienced pay issues.
Nationally, 73 per cent — or 193,039 of 262,696
— of federal public servants have experienced pay problems.
According to one recent media report out of Ottawa, the next federal budget is expected to include an additional $172 million to help Public Services and Procurement Canada “stabilize” the Phoenix pay system.
In November, the department listed 22 measures, with deadlines, intended to smooth out the problems federal employees are having with their pay.
According to the public services website, some of the actions have been implemented or are ongoing, while others are slated for implementation this year.
By 2019, the department expects to have a modernized case management tool to improve work flow in the pay processing centre and to provide employees with better support and more detailed information on their pay.
The rate of pay transactions processed within service standards recently improved from 41 per cent in November to 58 per cent at the end of December. The target is to have 95 per cent of transactions handled according to standards.
However, numbers on the department’s website also show the total number of transactions being handled “beyond normal workload” increased by 32,000 to 367,000 during the same timeframe. The target is zero.
Notes on the site indicate that number has increased due to a focus on outstanding payments and priority transactions to ensure accurate 2017 tax slips.
The Phoenix system was purchased in early 2016 from IBM by the previous Conservative federal government to replace a decadesold system, and employees began reporting issues with their pay soon after.
The bulk of the problems have reportedly come through the public service pay centre in Miramichi, N.B.
