Union representatives for Queensland Health (QH) payroll workers have backed an executive’s claims of being bullied at work. Tens of thousands of QH employees have been paid incorrectly since the payroll system was introduced in March. QH director of payroll and establishment services Alan McGraw working since July this year resigned this Tuesday. In his resignation letter, Mr McGraw blamed unrealistic timeframes and demands being placed on the payroll staff trying to fix the trouble-plagued system calling it workplace bullying.
QH deputy director-general Michael Walsh denied claims of bullying. He added, “The payroll staff are under significant pressure… I believe that the organization is not a bullying organization and [Mr. McGraw] accepts that his opinion is different.” But Mr. Walsh added that no other senior payroll staff have expressed the same concerns as Mr. McGraw. “The demands that are placed on senior managers to meet the challenges of fixing the system is part of the job…The role of the senior manager is then to work with staff and build a team in order to ensure that we're able to deliver those improvements as quickly as possible.”
The Queensland Public Sector Union (QPSU) however agrees with Mr McGraw's decision to quit. “We've been swamped by phone calls - member after member congratulating the sentiments of this letter…Clearly the issues being felt by payroll staff are enormous in the fact that they're being provided with more and more unrealistic deadlines to deliver a system that was broken and can't be fixed,” he said.
Meanwhile the problem of payroll is still far from over. The unions say changes are being rushed. According to Australian Services Union (ASU) spokeswoman Julie Bignell, “There is certainly a push on at the moment to dispense with the pilot and just say 'let's just do it everywhere'…I think we all need to take a deep breath, acknowledge the pressure that everyone's under to get this fixed, but also acknowledge that the reason why we're in the spot that we're in is that people rushed into stuff.”
Mr. Walsh in reply stated, “We are undertaking preparatory work in the other locations so we can start discussing the things that we've learnt from the pilot so far, but we certainly haven't actually progressed any of the roll-out of the payroll operating model in the other locations.”
Health Minister Paul Lucas said that he was not briefed on the letter earlier and it was revealed to him only at an interview. “I can't authenticate this letter,” he said.
The pay bungle has already cost two other executives their jobs earlier this year. A report found the pay system costing more than $64 million was defective and the team giving its nod knew about its flaws.
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