Michel Vermette of the Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX). Photo: APEX

Federal executives are not happy. The usually staid bunch angrily took to Twitter on Wednesday to demand when their bosses would pay them promised raises.

The nearly 6,700 executives working in government have been waiting for the fickle Phoenix pay system to finish implementing collective agreements for unionized employees so they can get in the queue to have their increases and retroactive pay processed.

The Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX), which represents executives, has politely — but increasingly impatiently — pressed Treasury Board on when Phoenix will finish processing those contracts and when executives can expect their raises, which are retroactive to 2014.

But the message has always been the same: They will get the raises when the “majority” of unionized employees get theirs. This week, however, word quickly spread that deputy ministers were told Phoenix can’t handle executive raises and retroactive pay until 2019.

That was it. On Wednesday, which was also payday, APEX fired off an angry tweet asking Treasury Board and Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the federal paymaster, whether that rumour was true.

It was an unorthodox move for the government’s most senior and highest-paid bureaucrats. They don’t usually grumble in public, but Michel Vermette, APEX’s chief executive officer, said patience has run out.

APEX has also been tweeting a countdown every payday, reminding executives of: the 105 days since their raises were announced; the 147 days since they were approved; and the 1,647 days of back pay owed.

“Executives have been patient. We were told something in June and now we are hearing something different,” Vermette said.

“We are trying to be reasonable. We aren’t a community that will picket at 90 Elgin (Treasury Board headquarters) or leave our Blackberries on our desk at the end of a seven-and-a-half-hour day. These are the leaders of the public service.”

Hey @TBS_Canada @PSPC_SPAC please confirm DMs told last week that EX increases won’t be til 2019 due to Phoenix capacity issues? @Clerk_GC https://t.co/SDa1ExOpYc — APEX (@APEX_GC) October 17, 2018

Executive pay has been a longstanding problem, but the delay in getting raises fuelled a slow burn that Vermette said left many feeling “disheartened, disregarded and disrespected.”

“Those are now regular comments and they are coming from all levels,” he said.

Executives were the last federal employees to be given raises. The government announced a six-per-cent raise in June, months after the 18 unions negotiated the same basic increase at the bargaining table.

By that point, Phoenix was swamped with collective agreements and unable to process the avalanche of transactions on time or correctly in order to meet the legal deadline of the various contracts.

The increase came with no target date for paying executives. Rather, Treasury Board issued a notice that executive raises wouldn’t be processed until Phoenix implemented the collective agreements of the “majority” of unionized employees.

Today, unions say it’s anyone’s guess when that will be. They argue PSPC doesn’t have a handle on how many public servants have been paid, nor what’s owed them under the latest contracts.

On top of that, those contracts have expired, or will expire in the coming months, and unions and Treasury Board are in a new round of collective bargaining.

That’s created more unease among executives that their raises could be delayed even longer if the government and unions reach new deals. Both parties have said they would like to settle quickly, partly to reduce pressure on Phoenix in calculating retroactive payments.

“I think one of the difficulties is that executives aren’t even sure they will get increases in 2019. If they keep this priority of paying collective agreements first, then who knows when they will be paid,” said Vermette. “If they get a settlement, the government will be under enormous pressure to implement those agreements, and it could be before we are paid.”

Federal lawyers, deputy ministers and other governor-in-council appointees are in line for the same raise as executives. They will receive a .75 per cent increase for 2014-16 and another for 2015-16; and 1.25 per cent in each of the next two years; plus an additional “wage adjustment,” or top-up, for 2016-17.

The amount owing is significant, with retroactive payments worth tens of thousands of dollars for many of these executives.

Vermette argues the delay is creating “perverse consequences,” including thousands of future pay transactions that could be avoided by paying executives their raises now.

New or promoted executives are getting job offers at the new higher salaries, but they continue to be paid at the old rates. And then there are payments for performance pay and bonuses, which are not only late, but are being calculated at old salary rates.

Some agencies are considering giving their executives performance pay based on the higher salaries. Others are said to have quietly paid their executives lump-sum payments to cover the back pay owed, which they will recover when the increases are finally paid.

A big bugbear is the narrowing gap between executive salaries and those of the employees they supervise. Without the raise, the top entry-level executive salary is $125,700, which many senior professionals can top with overtime and standby pay that executives don’t make. Executives are entitled to performance pay and bonuses, but APEX says that doesn’t compensate for the extra hours they routinely work.

So far, APEX has received no further explanations for the delay. The backlog of pay transactions sitting in the Miramichi, N.B., pay centre is shrinking, but slowly. This week, PSPC said it processed 7,000 collective-agreement transactions over the past month and has 15,000 more sitting in the queue.

Vermette said he he believes the government’s condition that the “majority” of transactions from last round of bargaining be processed has been met, so nothing should stop payments to executives.

The reason for the delay has been puzzling from the start.

The pay and plight of executives doesn’t generate much sympathy, so the government can easily put off dealing with them, especially when it has a backlog of pay problems for most rank-and-file employees.

In fact, some speculate Treasury Board ministers may simply have approved the increase on the condition that they wouldn’t be paid until unionized workers are paid.

Nor does the government have the same legal obligation to pay executives as it does to meet deadlines imposed by its contracts with unionized workers.

Some theorized the government is in no rush because it partly blames executives for the Phoenix disaster.

Or was it pressure from the unions? The giant Public Service Alliance of Canada passed a Phoenix resolution at its May convention, asking the government to halt all performance pay and bonuses to executives “until every worker is correctly paid every time.”

Whatever it is, neither Treasury Board nor PSPC had a response when contacted.

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