Unpaid hours, ignored salary increases, incomprehensible explanations, overpayments: Quebec officials have serious problems with their salaries and blame Éric Caire’s ministry for this fiasco that looks like a Quebec phoenix.
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“It’s a mess,” said Martin Perreault, president of the Conservation Officers Union.
Another tile falls on the Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital (MCN), which has already been looking very bad in recent weeks with the disastrous deployment of the new online platform SAAQclic.
Our Bureau of Investigation has spoken with various unions and government employees over the past few weeks who have raised several errors in government employee payroll accounting.
So civil servants are being paid 35 hours a week even though they work 37.5, others would be asked without explanation for the overpaid amounts, and many would be waiting for thousands of dollars in salary feedback Quebec has promised.
“We’re seeing what’s happening in SAAQ right now. We want to carry out the digital change and cannot even adjust employee salaries! protests Marc-André Martin, President of the Professional Association of Government Engineers of Quebec.
As for federal officials
Quebec workers have not failed to draw a parallel between their situation and Phoenix’s pay system, which has caused many problems for federal employees in recent years.
As of January 2022, the MCN has been processing the compensation of approximately 80,000 Quebec government employees, specifically through the SAGIR system. Dubbed “it sucks” by officials, this IT project has consistently made headlines for its delays, hiccups and skyrocketing costs.
“We’re starting to call it the baby Phoenix,” comments Martin Perreault.
“There have always been difficulties with SAGIR. The system is not able to deal with peculiarities because it is too rigid,” adds Christian Daigle, President of the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec (SFPQ).
Employees who find errors in their pay should report them to an email address associated with CMN. An automatic reply then informs them that their message will be processed in the next few weeks.
“For us, state compensation is like a big black hole. You send a request there and it gets lost in nowhere,” pictured Mathieu Lavoie, President of the Union of Peace Officers in Quebec’s Correctional Services.
More employees
Via email, the MCN claims it has taken action to rectify the situation, including hiring staff.
The move has already brought improvements, says the department, which is facing an extra workload following new collective agreements signed between the government and several unions in recent months.
35 working hours paid 37.5
Photo provided by a source
A government engineer’s payslip shows he is being paid 70 hours every two weeks despite working at least 75 hours.
Despite working a minimum of 37.5 hours a week, state engineers have only been paid 35 hours for nearly four months, and Quebec cannot adjust their pay.
“It’s frightening what’s happening. No self-respecting company does that,” said Marc-André Martin, president of the Quebec government’s engineering association.
Since December 5, the state engineers have increased their working hours after their new collective agreement came into force. However, their compensation was never adjusted accordingly. Worse still, overtime is no longer counted and the hourly wage – which should have increased – has remained the same.
“People who work 45 or 50 hours a week are being brought back to 35 hours! And not only are they not getting paid the right number of hours, they aren’t getting the right rate! It’s a real ordeal,” protests Mr. Martin.
Nine pages of explanations
Small consolation, the engineers of the state obtained the payment of the retrospective lump sums promised by the employer. However, the union cannot confirm whether these sums correspond to the agreements, since the payslips are “incomprehensible”.
“We’re engineers and we don’t understand how we’re paid,” denounces Mr Martin, adding that the MCN has produced a nine-page document to better understand what he’s saying.
In a communication received from our Bureau of Investigation, the MCN estimates that it will be able to fix all of these issues by August.
Real nightmare during a work stoppage
Wrong pay is particularly common among civil servants who are on walkouts as they have to juggle demands for overpayments.
“If you involve the CNESST [Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail] or some other government agency, it’s a mess. We already know, in general, that when a file falls into a work accident, there are mistakes in payroll,” explains Mathieu Lavoie, president of the union of peace officers in Quebec’s correctional services.
Illogical claims
This situation also resonates with wildlife officers, whose members have had to deal with claims for “unjustified or illogical” sums in the past.
“One time they asked a person for almost $9,000 and it ended up being the employer who owed him $1,000,” said union president Martin Perreault.
The MCN ensures that in the event of irregularities in processing, the corrections made are made retrospectively and on a case-by-case basis.
A man is waiting for $10,000 to pay for his house
A traffic controller who expected a $10,000 lump sum finds himself without a down payment on the purchase of his new home as Quebec defaults on backdated payments.
“It was part of my deposit, my move and my welcome tax. And without that amount, I get in trouble,” says this official, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
In late November, the Brotherhood of Road Control Constables of Quebec formalized a new collective bargaining agreement in which Quebec agreed to pay retrospective amounts to union members.
“It was guaranteed, it was paid no later than February 23,” explains the road manager, adding that salary adjustments were also on the menu of this agreement.
help from relatives
With a guarantee that he would be paid “between $8,000 and $10,000,” the worker bought an apartment last December. But the money never came.
The man had to ask his relatives to pay his deposit.
“I was able to organize that, but if the feedback is not paid for by my move, I have to get some credit,” he regrets.
The Brotherhood of Road Control Constables of Quebec has written to Minister Éric Caire and Treasury Secretary Sonia LeBel to alert them to the situation.
“I hope that my members will not see a Quebec-made version of the Phoenix system that has had a very negative impact on federal government employees,” reads the letter from union president Jean-Claude Daignault.
The MCN assures that the file will be settled “in the coming weeks”.
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