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

Federal technology workers could upgrade in-house systems across the government, from the military to the RCMP, to pay Canada’s public servants and dump the Phoenix pay system within two years, says the union for information technology employees.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), told union members Tuesday at a town hall that the union is pushing the Trudeau government to use its own IT workers “at every stage” in developing a new pay system to replace the one that has left the public service in crisis for more than two years.

“The government can’t expect public servants to wait seven or eight more years before we get rid of Phoenix,” she said. “Public service professionals are ready to lead the development of a functioning system.”

Daviau said the union wants the government to look at the alternatives being suggested by its 13,000 IT workers, as well as the industry, over the short, medium and long term.

She said many departments have corporate administration systems that could be upgraded so they could pay employees – or in the case of the RCMP and military, which have their own pay systems, could be modified to pay more employees.

The union has already appealed to the Canada Revenue Agency to update its corporate administration system so it could pay its 40,000 employees. The Canada Border Services Agency uses the same system for its 14,000 employees, and the union has suggested it could be modified within a year.

Daviau also suggested the 50-year-old regional pay system, which was mothballed when Phoenix went live, could somehow be reactivated as part of the solution to wean Canada’s 300,000 public servants off Phoenix faster.

The union’s pitch for the CRA system to become a substitute pay system was quickly dismissed by the government, however.

Steven MacKinnon, parliamentary secretary to Public Services and Procurement Canada, said the government remains focused on stabilizing Phoenix and isn’t interested in having “multiple pay technologies being run in the public service.”

Meanwhile, the union is meeting with Treasury Board, which received $16 million in the budget to start searching for a new system to replace Phoenix. Daviau said the union’s big push is to ensure public servants are consulted this time rather than relying on the private sector for a fix.

The union has been a harsh critic of the government’s contract with technology giant IBM, which was hired to build Phoenix, using Oracle’s PeopleSoft as the basis for the system.

“The Phoenix fiasco is a direct result of wholesale contracting out, of choosing to completely bypass the skills and know-how of our professional public service,” Daviau.

“The solution I am pitching is to make use of what we have now. In the short-term we should take advantage of everything on deck … We’re saying take advantage of what you got and tack on a little module that lets you pay people.”

Over the medium term, all these platforms could be standardized with the same software, which could be foundation for the pay system of the future.

Daviau said the government has corporate administrative systems that “work perfectly well” and they already have the capacity to calculate pay. The problems erupt when that data is sent to Phoenix to calculate the net pay — after deductions — and issue the cheques.

“You have system out there our members have worked on, implemented and maintained so let’s leverage those systems, bring them up to date and use them as the base for the government’s future pay system.”

She argues it’s faster and cheaper to pay workers while the government works on the new pay system that will eventually replace Phoenix.

Daviau said she plans to make a formal written proposal to the government on ways to get people paid other than by Phoenix, which Public Services and Procurement Canada is spending $431 million to fix.

Daviau said the town hall was held to hear members concerns and assure them that the union is taking “desperate action for desperate times.”

She fielded questions from frustrated members why the union isn’t turning up the pressure by strikes, job actions or suing the government for its failure to pay employees properly.

Daviau said these are questions she faces all the time. She said employees would face fines or disciplines for illegal strikes, a risk the union isn’t willing to take.

Unions are also legally prevented from suing the government, but are aggressively pursuing grievances for damages to compensate public servants for the stress and hardship caused by Phoenix.

All unions are involved in negotiations for damages, which is being led by the joint Union Management Consultation Committee.

A Quebec law firm is representing non-unionized employees in a class action suit but the Public Sector Labour Relations Act prevents unionized employees from suing because they can file grievances for redess.

Daviau said the union is effectively suing the government with grievances, which she said can be faster and settled by negotiations rather than one imposed by the court.

When questioned about why the union hasn’t called for a public inquiry, Daviau said the government has conducted studies and is awaiting Auditor-General Michael Ferguson’s second report into how Phoenix went off the rails. She said the union would like to see senior managers responsible for the debacle held to account.

The union has also launched a “Nix Phoenix” action plan, including a letter-writing campaign to the working group of ministers that Trudeau appointed to oversee the fixing of the pay system. It wants the six ministers to consult federal IT workers and come up alternatives other than PSPC’s plan to ‘stabilize’ Phoenix.