PIPSC files policy grievances regarding the Phoenix pay system

After defending literally hundreds of individual member grievances related to the Phoenix pay system and lobbying the government for many months with no permanent fix in sight, PIPSC has today filed policy grievances against the federal government, accusing the Employer of continuously violating the terms of our collective agreements since the implementation of the new Phoenix pay system in February 2016.

Specifically, we state that the Employer has, among other things, “made continuous and on-going errors in pay, including but not limited to: failure to be paid, substantial delays, miscalculation, underpayments, overpayments, and inaccurate payments for overtime, extra duty pay, allowances, annual increments, retroactive pay, acting pay, promotional pay, payments in lieu of severance.”

In a second set of grievances, we are also grieving problems paying disability benefits and maternity/parental leave benefits as violations of our collective agreements and the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA).

Our members have shown remarkable patience and, in some instances, astonishing forbearance in coping with the problems and deprivations imposed by the government’s failure to accurately and reliably pay the salaries our members are owed.

Our demands that the Employer “immediately pay all monies owed,” “pay members accurately and in a timely manner” and, “process all information related to disability and maternity/parental benefits in a timely manner” are fair and reasonable demands to make under what for many have been – and remain – extremely trying circumstances.

Under Canadian labour law, individual union members are prohibited from filing class action suits and are obligated to seek remedies through established grievance procedures. We hope that today’s policy grievances expedite resolution of a problem that should never have been allowed to occur in the first place and should never be allowed to happen again.

Debi Daviau

President