Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The largest federal union has sent a written notice to Treasury Board to begin the next round of collective bargaining, while the beleaguered Phoenix still struggles to pay employees money owed from the last negotiated contracts.

The notice to bargain sent by Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) kicks off the next round of collective bargaining to negotiate new contracts to replace those that will start to expire in June.

The government, however, is still processing pay transactions generated by four major contracts that PSAC negotiated during the previous bargaining rounds, which went back 2014.

Those contracts will expire over the next four months and PSAC said indications are that Phoenix will still be processing pay generated by them well into the fall.

PSAC President Robyn Benson said public servants deserve new collective agreements that recognize the work they’ve done through the Phoenix crisis even though they have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all for more than two years.

PSAC led the charge among federal unions to stop or at least delay the Phoenix rollout in 2016. The union is holding its triennial convention next week and Phoenix, along with bargaining, will be key issues.

“After two years of Phoenix pay problems, our members continue to show up to work and deliver the services Canadians depend on,” Benson said.

“This government promised a new and respectful relationship with public service workers, but that didn’t happen when the Liberals ignored our warnings about implementing Phoenix. Hopefully they can start to earn back the trust of our members by coming to the table with a mandate to negotiate a fair deal.”

Despite the notice, it will be months before negotiators are at the bargaining table.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said that could change if Treasury Board and unions decide to expedite contract talks to help take pressure off Phoenix.

She said PIPSC has had discussions with Treasury Board about streamlining the bargaining process and pay rules as long as it isn’t done at the expense of employees.

“We are open to expeditious agreements but not if comes with a cost to employees,” said Daviau.

It’s unclear how Phoenix will figure in the upcoming round of bargaining. Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough has said she would like a culling of the 80,000 rules governing the federal pay regime, but negotiations are handled by Treasury Board as the employer.

Also, unions have been hesitant about jumping into the next round of bargaining until the Liberals lived up to its promise to repeal Tory-era legislation that diminished the bargaining clout and power of federal unions.

Meanwhile, Public Services and Procurement Canada is still battling to clear a backlog of 625,000 files. It’s unclear how many transactions from collective agreements reached in the last round that Phoenix has yet to process. Many PSAC members are waiting for payments which could take until October to complete.

Daviau said about half her members are still awaiting payments from collective agreements. A recent survey of members found 67 per cent aren’t sure if their retroactive pay is correct; nine per cent haven’t received back pay at all.

“We really don’t know the statistics,” said Daviau. “Among our membership, two-thirds say they don’t know if they have been paid correctly, especially their retroactive payments.

PSPC missed the legal deadlines to implement many of the collective agreements. Unions have filed grievances against the government for missing the deadlines and are seeking damages to compensate employees for the stress and financial hardship caused by Phoenix

The last round of bargaining, which began under the Harper government, dragged on for several years and was highly unusual because never had the government negotiated so many contracts at once.

Deals have now been reached for 95 per cent of the unionized workforce but settlements are still outstanding for lawyers, university teachers and ships officers and federal pilots. The retroactive payments from those settlements will be dumped onto the Phoenix workload.

The government recently reached with the 1,200 foreign service officers and the 10,000 border agents but they have yet to be signed and processed by Phoenix. The border agents are holding a ratification vote until May 31.

But Phoenix has even thrown a curve ball in ratification votes. The pay system has created such havoc in not collecting union dues properly that unions don’t who has paid dues and are allowed to vote.

The 6,400 executives working in government haven’t had raises yet and some say they won’t until contracts with unionized employees and signed and implemented.

The volume of collective agreements with back pay proved to be a major setback for Phoenix, which was launched without the ability to automatically calculate retroactive payments. Retroactivity was one of several features that were taken out of the IBM contract to build Phoenix before launch in an effort to save money and deliver the project on time.

The government has argued that implementing the changes from contracts negotiated in the upcoming round should be easier. The big difference: retroactive payments won’t go back four years and pay records won’t be divided between Phoenix and the defunct regional pay system.