Hundreds of federal government employees in B.C. say that Ottawa is stiffing them when it comes to salary.
Bob Jackson of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, B.C. Division, says a flawed federal government payment system called Phoenix has stalled cheques for federal workers.
“These are real life situations,” Jackson said. “People have kids, people have things that they rely on outside of work, and they rely on a reliable system to make sure they’re getting paid.”
Even requests for emergency pay have fallen on deaf ears, according to one federal employee.
“It’s been almost two months now,” said the man, who spoke to CTV News on condition of anonymity for fear he could be fired.
“You’ve got a mortgage, you’ve got a family to support, and it’s hard when an employer’s not supporting you,” he said. “It’s one of the worst things that an employer could probably do is not pay their employees. You feel like they’ve broken the trust that’s there.”
CTV News reached out to the minister in charge of public services, but received no response Friday.
NDP MP Murray Rankin said the government has spoken about the problem in the House of Commons.
He said he’s outraged it still hasn’t been fixed.
“How can people be expected to put shoes on their kids’ feet or pay their mortgage in a situation like that?” Rankin said. “It’s obviously a screw-up by the federal government, and they’ve got to fix it.”
The unnamed employee said he’s heard talk of class-action lawsuits over the error.
“I feel very let down by my employer and if this was private industry, they wouldn’t have any employees left and they wouldn’t be in business,” he said.
