Union workers lined University Avenue in Charlottetown Thursday afternoon, protesting the Phoenix payroll system which was installed three years ago.

Officials with the Public Service Alliance of Canada held events across the country today to pressure the government to take more concrete action to reduce the Phoenix pay backlog.

This week marks three years since the launch of Phoenix, the IBM-customized system that went live on Feb. 24, 2016.

Since then, tens of thousands of workers have had issues with Phoenix with some going months with little or no pay, and others being overpaid.

'Lost their car, lost their homes'

According to the association, more than 3,000 of those workers live on the Island.

"I seriously have people who've lost their car, lost their homes, lost their credit ratings, have nothing because of this payroll system and it needs to go," said PSAC regional executive vice-president Colleen Coffey.

PSAC regional executive vice-president Colleen Coffey says she never thought the alliance would still be protesting the Phoenix payroll system. (Nicole Williams/CBC)

"But the fact is it's not going to go anytime soon, because there's not a company who will … do our payroll."

Coffey said she was in disbelief that the association would still be protesting the Phoenix pay system three years after its introduction.

"I guess I'm a little crazy, but I didn't think we'd still be here," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of unsolved transactions

Dan Aiken, the president of the P.E.I. Council of PSAC, has had his own experiences with Phoenix where he didn't receive pay for several pay periods.

"On payday I didn't get paid. That's a scary feeling," Aiken said.

"When you don't get paid on payday you can be in hardship pretty quickly and you know, then the next payday you really start to panic."

Government officials have said fixing the Phoenix payroll problems are a priority. It's worked to reduce the massive backlog of pay issues, but it was still dealing with at least 275,000 unresolved transactions as of Jan. 23.

Wage increases and short-term contracts

It's not just the pay system that had the alliance protesting on the street.

Currently, PSAC is in bargaining with the Treasury Board, the Canada Revenue Agency and Parks Canada, but the group said the government offered wage increase of one per cent over four years is not enough.

Members of the alliance are also calling for wage increases and permanent employment for contract workers. (Nicole Williams/CBC)

Aiken said there are also concerns about long-time public service workers who have only worked short-term contracts, and have not been made permanent employees.

"A lot of people are in term positions year after year after year. When you see someone who has worked as a term employee for 20 years, that isn't right," he said.

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