Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

source: The Ottawa Citizen, Nov 5 2007

High stress levels, work-life balance main reasons for escalation, PSAC says

The incidence of disability claims by federal public servants is at a 37-year-high, with women bearing a disproportionate share of the burden, according to federal government figures presented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

In a presentation this week to a group of PSAC local officers, James Infantino, a PSAC pensions and disability insurance officer, singled out high job stress levels and problems with work-life balance as key reasons for the escalating claims.

“The federal government is a cesspool right now,” he said in an interview. “The stress levels are inconceivable, actually.”

The high rate of depression in the public service was pointed out in a major federal study of public service compensation that was posted without fanfare on Treasury Board’s website in July.

The study, commissioned in 2004 by former Treasury Board president Reg Alcock, made no attempt to explain why more public servants are unable to work because of psychological problems.

In his presentation, Mr. Infantino outlined three disability claim trends. One is an inexorable rise in the incidence of disability claims. Last year, 2,908 workers filed disability claims, a claim incidence of 13.54 per 1,000 plan members.

Mr. Infantino said the incidence of disability plan claims in the past three years is the highest it has been since its inception in 1970. “We’ve never seen disability incidence rates that high.”

Paradoxically, claims fell sharply in the late 1990s, during a period when the federal government’s sweeping program review downsized the public service by between 40,000 and 50,000 person years.

Mr. Infantino said the most probable explanation is that those likeliest to have filed disability claims during that period took buyouts or early retirement packages instead.

“But, of course, there was still 40,000 to 50,000 person years of work to do,” he said.

The burden fell on those who didn’t leave the workforce, causing disability claims to steadily rise.

Increasingly, that burden has been borne by women. Women now make up nearly 54 per cent of federal public servants. But they file two-thirds of all disability claims. “For every three claims, two are filed by women,” Mr. Infantino said.

Moreover, the disproportionate impact on women has been growing.

In 1991, when women constituted about 45 per cent of public servants, they filed 51.4 per cent of disability claims — a gap of 6.2 percentage points. Last year, that gap had more than doubled to 13.1 per cent.

“Females have always been overrepresented in disability claims,” Mr. Infantino said. “But what’s most disturbing is that it has continued to increase.”

The nature of disability claims has also changed dramatically, he said. In 1991, 23.7 per cent of approved claims were for depression and/or anxiety. By last year, that had nearly doubled to 45.1 per cent.

“Almost one out of every two claims filed in the federal public service cites depression or anxiety as the primary disability,” Mr. Infantino said.

He noted that disability claims aren’t approved until employees have exhausted all their sick leave or until a 13-week “elimination period” has expired, whichever is later.

“We’re not talking about your blue Mondays. What we’ve got is people who’ve been off at least 13 weeks who say I cannot come to work because I am depressed and/or anxious, and I have certified medical evidence of that.

“That’s quite disconcerting when you think of the number of claims filed for that particular reason.”

Mr. Infantino said PSAC has no analysis of the reasons for these various disability trends. “There’s been no real study as far as I know.”

But he had “no doubt” that job stress due to overwork is a major contributing factor. Though public service staffing levels have partly recovered from the 1990s downsizing, “I still don’t think we’ve recovered from program review,” Mr. Infantino said.

As a result, he said, public servants are struggling to balance their jobs with the demands of family life. “They’ve got many responsibilities outside of the workplace. And I think that has disproportionately fallen on women.”

Many public servants are also worried that the Conservative government might embark on another round of downsizing, he said. “People are very concerned about their futures.”