'We have members eating at the food bank': Workers want payroll fiasco fixed

Workersfrom Canada Revenue Agency'stax centre in Summerside, P.E.I.,gathered at the city's waterfront Tuesday to call for action on the problems with itscomputerized payroll system that have beenplaguingpublic servants for more than a year now.

• Ottawa announces new plan to tackle troubled Phoenix payroll system

They're among thousands of public servantsaffected by glitches in the federal government's Phoenix payroll system.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) shuttled busloads of workersfrom the Pope Road office complex to Green's Shore, where the union served a picniclunch and encouraged employees to sign postcards to the federal government calling for a solution.

'They expect to be paid'

People come to work and they expect to be paid. It's not difficult. It should not take two years to fix. Heather Ford

"I mean these are big issues. We have members eating at the food bank and these are working employees for the federal government," said Heather Ford, a tax centre employee and PSACrepresentative.

"The whole premise behind working is very easypeople come to work and they expect to be paid. It's not difficult. It should not take two years to fix," she said.

Phoenix a problem for more than a year

Problems with the Phoenix pay systembegan to surfacewhen it was rolled out last spring. Some people weren't paid, while others were paidtoo muchand are now on the hook to pay back their employerthousands of dollars.

The federal government employs about 2,500 PSAC members on P.E.I.

Employees in Summersidesaidthey are now reluctant to take parental leave or alter their employment status in any way, fearing new payroll glitches will emerge.

"Every person at some point in time has had issues from the Phoenix issues," said Ford, referring toher 1,100 co-workers at the tax centre.

The federal government saidits hiring of summer students isnow adding to the workload as itcontinues to work out the problems.

Federal government adds additionalstaff

A writtenupdate issued by the federal governmenton June 2stated345,000 payroll transactions currently need to be addressed.

The government saidit has added90 people at its pay centre in Miramichi, N.B., to work on solutions, in addition to 140 staff new staff insatellite offices around the country.

PSAC announced it is staging a boycott of National PublicService Week, which is now underway, because of the unresolved problems withpay system.

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