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Stressed compensation advisers at the central pay centre say their backlog of cases is “many times” higher than the 80,000 publicly reported by the federal government and that they won’t be able to meet the October deadline to clear the logjam.

Employees at the pay centre in Miramichi, N.B., had a closed meeting with union leaders this week where they vented about problems and accused the government of “over-promising and under-delivering” on fixes to the Phoenix pay system.

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“The (deadline) is not reasonable and they have to stop putting these dates out there,” said Donna Lackie, president of the Government Services Union.

“Slow down and stop over-committing and under-delivering. We are understaffed and people don’t feel they have been trained enough on Phoenix, which is not working so compensation advisers can’t do their jobs.”

Lackie met with Marie Lemay, deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, on Thursday to discuss the employees concerns.