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Phoenix federal payroll system plagued with problems

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The problem for Stephen, a single dad, began with the first paycheque in March.

Over the next three and half months, between $500 and nearly $900 was missing from the federal public service employee’s monthly earnings.

Over the months the pay problems took their toll.

“I had to give up three weekends with my children because I didn’t have food to feed them. I don’t mind eating peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner for days on end but I certainly wasn’t going to feed my kids that.

“I had to miss my daughter’s softball tournament, which I promised I would be at but I couldn’t because I didn’t have the gas to get there.

“I took four days off due to the stress of the situation. I was incapable of working.”

One payday was $8 less than his monthly rent. His cellphone was cutoff, bill unpaid. He wracked up $200 in late fees for unpaid bills and interest. His relationship came under stress.

“There was days I didn’t go to work because I didn’t have the gas to get to work,” he says. “I had to go to the food bank.”

Stephen, who didn’t want to be identified out of fear of reprisals, is one of an estimated 80,000 federal employees affected by the ongoing glitches in the federal government’s new payroll system, Phoenix.

“We have people who are quitting their jobs. I had to go to the food bank,” Stephen says. One of his colleagues missed three full paycheques. Another did not get her maternity leave top-up.

The federal government offered emergency payments to those worst-hit but Stephen says those were only for people who received zero pay.

“It is absolutely insane,” he says.

The Phoenix system has been plagued with issues since it went into service in February, following five years in development.

Phoenix, designed by IBM, replaces a decades-old system to handle pay for more than 300,000 federal government employees.

The problems were immediate.

Even prior to its launch, concerns were raised about privacy breaches. Those glitches during the testing phase were low-risk, were fixed and have been reviewed by the federal privacy commissioner, the deputy minister of public services and procurement assured employees in a letter last week.

With regard to paycheques, extras such as the northern bonus, overtime and other benefits weren’t included.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. More than 700 federal employees weren’t paid at all.

The payroll glitches affected every department from immigration employees and military college instructors to federal pilots and park rangers.

Any alteration to standard pay appears to wreak havoc, Stephen says.

And while government officials were aware of the glitches, not enough was done to address the system failures or to help employees affected, he says.

“There was absolutely no way of contacting anyone,” he says, adding that he sent an email every week once he finally found a contact for the new system.

His immediate management team was very sympathetic and tried to help, but they had no luck getting the situation remedied, either.

Stephen’s pay was rectified in mid-June but he hasn’t yet received back pay for the wrongful deductions. He’s hoping that come soon, as he finally had to turn to family and friends for loans to keep him afloat.

“I think the worst thing for me was the complete helplessness. I had no way of fixing the problem,” Stephen says.

He says the whole ordeal was hard on his children and a hit to his dignity.

“I had to tell [my daughter] a lie because I was too embarrassed to tell her I was broke,” he says.

“This is one of the worst things that I’ve ever experienced.”

Several unions, including the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Unifor, the Canadian Federal Pilots Association and the Canadian Military Colleges Faculty Association, have filed an application with the Federal Court seeking an order that the federal government address the problem.

After an appeal for help from retired payroll employees, Wednesday was supposed to be the first problem-free federal payday for Phoenix.

An emergency meeting of the House of Commons operations and estimates committee is scheduled Thursday to address the Phoenix debacle.