Category: Uncategorized

Sisters and Brothers,

Please read below an important message from the PSAC regarding the federal government’s decision to delay the recovery of overpayments and emergency pay due to the Phoenix pay system.

I received today the confirmation by CRA officials that this decision applies to all departments and agencies, including the Canada Revenue Agency. Therefore, this decision will also applies to our members.

Please distribute this message to your members.

In Solidarity,

Marc Brière

Président national du SEI

UTE National President

A Phoenix Victory Source

In response to pressure from PSAC, the federal government has finally agreed to halt recoveries of overpayments, emergency salary advances (ESA) and priority payments until employees’ pay files have been cleared of all outstanding transactions. This means employees will receive any and all funds they are owed before they must reimburse the employer for any overpayments or emergency pay.

“Many of our members who received overpayments have also been underpaid, are missing entitlements, or are owed retro pay from the collective agreements signed last year. That is why PSAC has been pushing for a whole-person approach to pay files before beginning any recoveries. Thanks to the hard work of our members and our union, the government is finally listening,” said PSAC National President Robyn Benson. “However, we will need to hold their feet to the fire to ensure this commitment is fully implemented on the ground.”

No recovery of an overpayment (including ESA and priority pay) is to commence until an employee’s pay file is completely reconciled; namely, until the employee’s pay problems, such as incorrect or no pay, have been resolved.

New approach to recovery of emergency pay

Recovery of ESA and priority pay will now be treated the same as the recovery of overpayments, and will have the same flexibility under the new directive in the Terms and Conditions of Employment. The goal is to end the hardship being caused by the recovery of emergency salary advances and priority payments.

Until now, most departments have been instructing the pay centre to recover ESA or priority pays from the employee’s next pay cheque, as per the existing directives. This has resulted in many employees being caught in a cycle of needing to access emergency pay time and time again because pay problems are often not resolved by their next pay cheque.

“We are disappointed it took so long for the government to be convinced that their standard directives on recovering emergency pay were problematic in the era of Phoenix,” said Benson. “That said, we are relieved to see them finally making these much-needed changes. PSAC and our members will now need to be vigilant in holding the employer to account when it comes to these recoveries.”

PSAC strongly urges its members who are accessing emergency pay to speak to their section 34 manager about the changes to how recovery will be done for ESA and priority pay.

Flexibility of recovery

When overpayments are discovered, employees will be notified in writing. However, recovery should not begin until the following criteria has been met:

1. All monies owed to the employee has been paid out.
2. The employee experiences three stable pay periods.
3. A reasonable repayment plan has been agreed to by the employee.

The same applies to the recovery of emergency salary advances and priority pay.

PSAC members who face problems as a result of recoveries should immediately contact their steward, pay advocate, local executive, component or their nearest PSAC regional office.

Further Update

Sisters and brothers:

The June 28 GTA Service Modernization (GSM) announcement had potential radical changes to our organizational structure. CRA management at all levels saw fit to make decisions and attempt to implement GTA Service Modernization (GSM) without any consultation from the unions or you, the people whose lives and careers were going to be turned upside down.

The impact of the announcement was felt immediately by all of us. Shock, anger, anxiety from the commute to the extra time on the road, the additional expenses, the familial obligations, the lack of career development. The list went on and on and rightly so.

Because of you taking action to fight for what you believe in over 700 grievances from UTE were filed across the GTA and our voices were heard, all the way up to the National level. Our PIPSC brothers and sisters were very vocal too.

As a result of your voice and your actions true consultation has happened over the last few months. Your local UTE executives from across the GTA met with local management on a weekly basis along with PIPSC reps. This was our Local Working Group Committee. At these meetings, your union executives have worked hard and pushed to have your concerns addressed to the best of our ability within the constraints that we were given. We pushed hard for the work-life balance you deserve and and pushed hard to ensure career development for all our members in all our GTA locals. All of that is not only what’s best for our members but best for the CRA.

We worked with management and assessed each model provided for review. We believe that this new model reflects our concerns as much as possible and is a significant improvement for our membership – the focus on virtual reporting and workplace flexibilities in many ways is vastly different from the original model presented on June 28.

We will continue to fight for these flexibilities during the implementation stage of modernization.

Thank you for your support over the past 6 months, and thank you for your continued support in the future.

These last few months have proven again the positive change we, union brothers and sisters, can bring about when we are strong, united and take action together.

When true consultation is held, the best outcomes can be had for all parties involved.

In solidarity,
Your UTE GTR Local Executive

GTA Modernization has an update