The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat distributed nearly 4.3 million compensation hours to workers affected by the problematic Phoenix pay system, according to data obtained by CBC news.
I worked for the federal government for 25 years. I went months at a time any time I changed jobs or got promoted not getting paid the right amount. Sometimes I wouldn’t get paid at all. The pay people always told me that it eat ok because they would eventually get it figured out. I tried multiple times to explain that I bank and my landlord wouldn’t accept that but they just shrugged. Overtime and expenses would go six months before being paid. All that time I was out of pocket. My pay had constant deduction adjustments as they tried to get past mistakes corrected.
I left the federal government on 2011 and went to work for a private company. I told my wife to anticipate a few weeks before they got my pay flowing. At the end of the next pay period they paid me, the exact amount that I eat owed. Every pay period after that I was paid exactly the right amount. When I left that company in very good terms they paid my final paycheque immediately and it was exactly correct.
When I left that company and went to work for a US company as a foreign contractor my pay was always right and always on time. That company was sold to another company and my pay was never late or wrong. We were them divested and sold to another company and my pay was always on time and always correct.
Were any other employer in the country doing what the federal government is doing it would have been charged with gross violations of labour laws. The federal government just absolves itself with a, “Tee hee. Oops.”
Were any other employer in the country doing what the federal government is doing it would have been charged with gross violations of labour laws. The federal government just absolves itself with a, “Tee hee. Oops.”
That’s the part I’ve never understood. How is it possible for any employer to not be subject to labour law and contract obligations. Why weren’t they on strike until it was fixed? It’s not like they were being paid! I remember having gone on strike because the camp cooks decided to serve something other than steak on Wednesday (steak day, as it was known).
I’ve also never understood why local managers couldn’t just cut cheques based on known wages and deductions while others work on rectifying the problems.
How is it possible for any employer to not be subject to labour law and contract obligations.
Some agreements were made to compensate. But it’s hard to take this particular employer to task too harshly as the employees own the business. The workers are the employer.
Not in any meaningful sense. If they were, they’d for sure have found a way to pay themselves and avoid labour disputes that put them on the picket line.
If it were a small mom and pop business, maybe. You can usually find compromise when the numbers are small enough that you can sit the entire company around a table and hash out your grievances.
But we’re talking about a big business. One of the (if not the) largest businesses in the country. In big business it is really hard to get everyone on the same page at the best of times. But in this case every worker is the employer, which complicates things even more. If the accounting department says, “Nope, deal with it.” what are you going to do? Say “You’re fired” as they say “No, you’re fired!”
You’re right that being an employer doesn’t magically give you control over other people. They’re going to do what they want, even in small businesses, but especially in big businesses. If the workers don’t want to fix this, what are you going to do? It is not going to automatically fix itself. Only the workers can fix it.
What a load of nonsense. Federal employees don’t own the government any more than the average Canadian does. We pay for it but we don’t own it. The government is owned by the wealthy, the powerful, and corporations. The rest of us are just cattle being farmed for wealth. They get us in debt as early as possible and keep us in debt until the day we die and take everything we owned to pay it off.
They fuck up the workers pay because they can because they allow themselves to get away with it.
The government is owned by the wealthy, the powerful, and corporations.
Owned by, no. Controlled by – because they are the only ones that take an interest in government? That’s probably true. When was the last time the average Canadian even talked to their MP as per their democratic obligation? I’m betting it is asymptotically never. Same goes for any business, though. Let’s be real, the average shareholder in any large business isn’t putting in much effort. Government isn’t exactly special there.
They fuck up the workers pay because they can because they allow themselves to get away with it.
Well, exactly. Workers do whatever they please – in every business, and especially in large businesses. The payroll department being lazy is almost certain. What incentive is there for them to try? What are you going to do exactly to change their minds? It’s just people at the end of the day.
No…this whole idea that the people own the government is fantasy. It’s not real.
Management are incompetent because yes men, often suffers of Dunning Kruger, are less threatening and get promoted. Once management is incompetent they promote more yes men. You end up with an entire upper management structure that is full of the abjectly incompetent while the competent people are abused and ignored and try to keep the wheels on.
Nothing nearly as fantastic as your ideas. It’s actually quite banal.
No…this whole idea that the people own the government is fantasy. It’s not real.
Why do we choose to hire workers to be our assistants in that business, then? That would be kind of stupid to hire and employ workers for a business you don’t own.
I agree that most of us will never talk to the assistant we hire, only cry later when they didn’t do the job they were magically expected to do without them knowing what was expected of them because they aren’t mind readers and the bosses were too afraid to talk to them. But such is life. I’ve seen some mom and pop business owners do the same.
When someone says something so dumb, the entire conversation is killed and you need to move on immediately.
It is the talking equivalent of aggressively holding down the off button on your computer to just shut it down, without regard for open documents or what you were doing.
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