RMIT accused of massive underpayments of academic staff

RMIT University is facing claims of underpaying some academic staff, with a potential shortfall of millions of dollars dating back seven years.

RMIT University is facing a massive underpayments claim from casual staff.

RMIT University is accused of underpaying hundreds of casual staff, in a case the tertiary education union claims is widespread and systematic wage theft of several million dollars dating back several years.

Academic staff claim they are owed an average of about $10,000 each because they were paid the wrong rate for the marking of assignments and examination papers.

The case is the latest underpayments issue to emerge in Victorian universities after wage problems also occurred at Melbourne and La Trobe in the past 12 months.

The National Tertiary Education Union is alleging “significant and sustained wage theft” of casual academic staff at RMIT dating back to 2013-14 in 11 of the 16 schools at the university.

RMIT has settled a number of individual underpayment cases in the last 12 months but more evidence of claims has since emerged, prompting the union to lodge a collective dispute on June 11.

RMIT University’s main campus is based in central Melbourne.

NTEU state assistant secretary Sarah Roberts said the case was disappointing after so much Fair Work Ombudsman attention on wage theft from university casuals.

“We can only conclude that universities like RMIT are carrying on with practices like these because they believe they won’t get caught,’’ Ms Roberts said.

“Unfortunately for them it’s now coming home to roost.’’

The union will also explore if the state government’s new wage theft laws, which came into effect on July 1, had been breached.

“The NTEU is going to make sure every cent is paid back to every employee who worked and didn’t get paid, and then our priority is going to be making sure this never happens again.’’

An apology was also being sought from the university, she said.

An RMIT spokeswoman said that the university took its enterprise agreements obligations seriously and was committed to ensuring that employees receive their full entitlements.  

 “If ever RMIT is provided with evidence to suggest that any employee may not have been correctly paid, it will investigate the matter. In instances when an error may have inadvertently occurred, RMIT would of course rectify the error.”

After an initial meeting between campus bosses and the union soon after, another meeting is scheduled for next week.

In June, La Trobe University announced it would investigate claims some its staff had been underpaid for up to six years after an independent audit by KPMG detected problems with the university’s payment processes.

“The university continues to implement the recommended actions and analyse our payments to casual staff over the past six years to quantify, then rectify any underpayments that may have occurred,’’ a La Trobe spokeswoman said.

And last year, Melbourne University repaid millions of dollars to at least 1500 academics across four faculties.