Some PSAC Employees Got Regular Pay During 2023 Strike

Revenue Canada workers form a picket line in Montreal on April 20, 2023, the second day of a strike by over 150,000 PSAC federal employees across the country. Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press

Payroll mistakes reportedly resulted in striking workers getting paid millions of dollars during a 2023 strike.

According to Blackock’s Reporter, the federal Department of Public Works said about 120,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada were paid regular wages during a 12-day strike in the spring of 2023.

The department added that most overpayments have been recovered.

“In total approximately $309 million in overpayments was created between April and November 2023,” the department wrote the Commons government operations committee.

The department added that about $150 million in overpayments was created for “leave without pay” transactions due to strike activities, as departments “were not able to enter ‘leave without pay’ in the system for over 100,000 employees in time to stop their pay.”

“These transactions were automatically processed by the pay system,” it added. “Most of the strike related ‘leave without pay’ overpayments were recovered through first available funds.”

The strike ended in early May after cabinet agreed to a wage increase of 11.5 percent over four years, along with a $2,500 signing bonus for members. The Public Service Alliance at the time said it also won an agreement that “in the event of layoffs PSAC members will not lose their jobs if they can perform the duties of a contractor already working with the federal government.”

Treasury Board President Mona Fortier put the cost of the settlement at $5.2 billion, or about $1.3 billion per year. She was dropped from cabinet last July 26.

Previously, the federal government had offered a 9 percent wage increase over three years, while the union was asking for 13.5 percent.

The union had also been asking for the right to have some employees work from home full-time.

They ended up with an agreement that allows some flexibility in remote work arrangements.

The strike was the longest by the Public Service Alliance since a 1991 walkout that lasted 13 days and ended with back-to-work legislation.

In its submission to the Commons committee, the public works department said pay errors were not extraordinary and easily explained, Blacklock’s reported. “Overpayments are generally caused by late data entry on the part of actioning departments, late manual processing on the part of pay processors either at the pay centre or in departments, or human error,” it wrote.

“Transactions that lead to overpayments will either result in a recovery on first available funds or will remain as an outstanding overpayment on the account until the overpayment has been recovered.”