Canadian Federal Public Servants are to receive up to $C2,500 ($A2,639) each in payments for ‘pain and suffering’ resulting from the Government’s failed Phoenix pay system.
The agreement, reached with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), comes as Government workers scramble to get emergency benefits out to individual Canadians and businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lump-sum payments are contained in a side deal alongside a tentative contract settlement for about 70,000 Public Servants that includes average annual wage increases of 2.11 per cent over a three-year term.
The PSAC said the payments were compensation for the problems caused to Federal workers by the broken Phoenix pay system, which created under-payments, over-payments or in some cases no pay at all for tens of thousands of employees.
National President, Chris Aylward said after four years of stress, uncertainty, and financial hardships members would finally be compensated.
The compensation agreement affects about 140,000 PSAC members but could also affect members of other unions that last year agreed to compensation of five days of cashable leave.
The PSAC had rejected that settlement, calling the five extra vacation days “meagre”.
Meanwhile, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) says a July return to the office for Public Servants, ordered by the Provincial Government, is too soon.
Vice President of the AUPE, Bonnie Gostola (pictured) said she would be watching closely to ensure the Government safeguards employees’ health.
“There is a lot of trepidation, a lot of worry about how they are going to be protected,” Ms Gostola said.
“We basically feel that they are really legitimate in that trepidation because of what we had to go through to get them protected during the COVID-19 crisis, at the very beginning of this process,” she said.
Ms Gostola said the AUPE felt the return to the workplace was too soon given health officials’ warnings about a potential second wave of COVID-19.
Ottawa, 13 July 2020
