'Darkest days' at Miramichi pay centre are in the past, says union, but problems persist

One of Canada's largest unions says the defective Phoenix payroll system is still causing pain and suffering for its members.

That includes the 850 people who work at the Public Service Pay Centre in Miramichi.

"There has to be mental anguish there," said Colleen Coffey, regional executive vice-president for the Atlantic region of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

"Imagine getting up and going to work knowing that someone's pay is going to be fouled up today."

Also hurting, according to the union, are the tens of thousands of federal employees who have received one, or many, incorrect paycheques since Phoenix went operational in 2016.

The failures of Phoenix have now been well documented by Canada's auditor general and a Senate committee.

But back in the day, hopes were high. Adopting the Phoenix system, including software designed by IBM, and centralizing hundreds of payroll jobs in Miramichi, was part of Ottawa's plan to streamline and automate a 40-year-old legacy system.

The changes were supposed to save $70 million a year but were fraught with problems that led to federal workers being overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all. Within the first year, the number of complaints and outstanding pay requests grew to nearly 500,000.

With no end to Phoenix in sight, the Public Service Alliance says it's time for a public inquiry.

Among other things, it would measure the full extent of the damage and the unplanned costs created by an "incomprensible failure of project management and project oversight."

Those last words did not come from the union. That's how Canada's former auditor general, the late Michael Ferguson, once described the Phoenix debacle.

Backlog cases rising again

According to the Canadian government''s pay centre dashboard, the backlog of financial transactions waiting to be processed came to 139,000 as of Feb. 16.

That's up from 94,000 last March. The union says the number is climbing partly because the system is still unreliable and continues to make mistakes. Meanwhile, some files as old as 2016, have been languishing.

"Those cases are not being actioned," Coffey said. "They're not even a priority."

Denise Whynot said she's trying to muster up the courage to make a new claim for federal compensation by showing that she suffered severe impact.

Treasury Board launched that option in November as an extension of a damage agreement reached between the union and Ottawa in 2020.

Still hasn't recovered

Whynot said just thinking about gathering up her receipts and making the application feels overwhelming and dredges up bad memories.

She has not recovered from the payroll mistakes that started happening to her in 2016.

It was the first time in her 20-year careerin the public service, processing unemployment claims, that she had experienced any kind of payroll problem.

She had just come back from a year of sick leave as Phoenix was rolling out.

Right away, she said, her paycheques were off. Instead of getting about $1,100 biweekly, she might get a cheque for $300 or even $100. This continued for months and there was no way to reach a payroll person to get it fixed.

"You couldn't get through on the phone," Whynotsaid. "Or if you got through, the call was dropped."

She said tried submitting claims electronically but never heard back.

After months of this, Whynot's debts started to snowball. She fell behind on her bills, her power was cut off, and her car was repossessed.

In May 2018, she lost her home in Liverpool, and from June to October that year, she lived rent-free in afamily cabin in Queens County in Nova Scotia.

It was the only way she could afford$974 in monthly bankruptcy payments, which continued until March 2020.

Today, Whynot said, she's still recovering financially and emotionally. There are days when she feels anxious, angry or sad.

Still, she doesn't blame the workers in Miramichi.

She thinks they must have suffered too, knowing they were working with a system that was causing serious hardship to real people.

Darkest days

Troy MacDonnell said those were some of the darkest days at the Miramichi pay centre.

He has been working there since it opened in 2012 and was there when Phoenix went operational in 2016. Problems began almost right away.

The sheer complexity of the different payroll rules were overwhelming, he said.

More than 100 collective agreements spread across different departments resulted in some 80,000 rules for calculating pay.

"The biggest problem with the 80,000 business rules is that they're all over the place," MacDonnell said. "The answer couldbe in the collective agreement. The answer could be in the terms and conditions of employment. The answer could be an HR bulletin. There's any number of places that the information you need to make a decision on someone's pay is located.

"So you have to find it and you have to be able to interpret it. And I mean, these acts of legislation are not written for people like you or me."

MacDonnell said his co-workers struggled, and morale was low.

"The worst days were right before Phoenix and then for a couple of years after, " he said. "Those were absolutely the darkest days. People that were [here] during that period, they are scarred."

The mood started to improve when government reports, such as the auditor general's, foundfault with the system and the bureaucrats who pushed it through.

"Because now they're not saying how incompetent we are," MacDonnell said. "They're realizing we've been dealt a hand that's impossible to win."

MacDonnell said staff now get more support and training, and after years of experience with Phoenix, they feel better about using it, at least on current files.

He said mistakes still happen as they would in any system where data is entered manually but he doesn't think they happen a lot.

The union executive has been more critical. Union president Chris Aylward said every paycheque is a fresh reminder that the government still can't figure out how to pay their workers correctly or on time.

Boon to local economy

Meanwhile, city officials in Miramichi said the positives of having the pay centre cannot be overstated.

"There's not a community in Canada, let alone little old New Brunswick here that wouldn't love to have the magnitude of these jobs and the salaries of these jobs," saidPaddy Quinn, the deputy mayor. "It's been a real boon to our community and our economy and socially as well."

New families moved to New Brunswickwhen pay centre advisers accepted transfers to Miramichi. Theinflux continued as the centre hired more people to help manage all the problems.

"Folks from all over the country moved in with new ideas and got involved in all our local goings-on and brought in new energy," Quinn said.

"It's been a good cultural kick in the rear-end."

What's next?

The Public Service Alliance says the government is working to replace Phoenix. That includes a contract with Ceridian to start designing a new system.

The union saidit has a dedicated team that will provide feedback as the system is tested in some federal departments.

MacDonnell said he's not apprehensive.

"I'm not afraid of experiencing what we did six years ago," he said.

"There's going to be a lot of people making sure that it's done properly and they'll be prepared to speak up, if it's not."