National defence staff still waiting for payroll corrections

In the most recent chapter of ongoing problems with the federal payroll system called Phoenix, a B.C. member of Parliament is pressing the government to right wrongs for national defence staff.

Randall Garrison, NDP MP for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke, raised the issue in the House of Commons Monday and accused Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan of not following up on the cases of several civilian defence employees.

• Confusion reigns at pay centre as Phoenix deadline looms
• Phoenix built to fail, HR report finds
• Pay centres overwhelmed as Phoenix overpayment deadline approaches

National Defence staff have long called for the government to fix its payroll issues and in November, Paul Jones, national executive officer with the Union of National Defence Employees, spoke with Garrison in Ottawa.

"They assured us our problems would be dealt with," Jones told All Points West guest host Khalil Akhtar, but said he wasn't contacted until this week.

"It wasn't until Randall's statement ..., the following day I received a call from the department to find out the details of my particular case."

Paying back overages

Jones returned to work recently after being on long term disability to discover he had been overpaid. He said he discussed options with the treasury board and came to the agreement that a portion of his paycheques each month would go toward paying it back.

"They didn't honour that agreement and took out the full 100 per cent of my pay cheque and put it toward the overpayment."  

"It was a big surprise coming back after long term disability, earning 70 per cent of your salary minus taxes — every month you're dipping into your savings — then to come back and not have a paycheque," he said.

More staff needed

The defence department staff are asking the federal government to hire more compensation advisors as a first step. Jones said there are only two advisors currently and that causes a lot of lag in the cases.

The department in charge of Phoenix, Public Services and Procurement Canada, told CBC progress is being made by hiring 300 additional compensation advisors in early 2018 to increase capacity.

 While Jones and others continue to wait for the pay system to improve, the anxiety of not knowing what your paycheque will be each month is getting to staff.

"People are anxious… a week before payday people are starting to get worked up again and it distracts us from our job," Jones said.

To hear the full interview listen to media below:

With files from All Points West