Halve vice-chancellors’ million-dollar pay, union tells Senate hearing

The behaviour of university leaders will be in the spotlight at a rushed Senate hearing in Canberra on Wednesday.

Dr Alison Barnes, federal president of the National Tertiary Education Union, will take centre stage at a Senate inquiry hearing into university governance. Photo James Croucher

Million-dollar salaries for vice-chancellors should be halved and pegged to the pay of premiers, the academics’ union will tell a Senate inquiry probing wage theft.

National Tertiary Education Union president Alison Barnes will also criticise the “golden handshakes that accompany the controversial exits of poor-performing, problematic vice-chancellors’’.

She will tell the Senate education and employment legislation committee on Wednesday that vice-chancellor salaries, which now average $1m per year, should be pegged to the pay of premiers, who earn between $400,000 and $500,000.

Vice-chancellors’ directorships, consultancies and external employment should be strictly limited and publicly reported, she will say.

And donors who give a university more than $1m over a decade should be barred from being appointed chancellor to avoid conflicts of interest, her submission states.

“The salaries of senior managers have blown out relative to the rest of the community and to the international university sector,’’ it states. “Egregious conflicts of interest, which would not be allowed in the public sector, are rife in universities.’’

The NTEU will tell the hearing in Canberra that universities spent $734m on consultants in 2023, while employing two-thirds of staff on casual or fixed-term contracts.

“Total wage theft has now reached $265m in confirmed underpayments and $168m in pending provisions with 150,126 workers affected across 30 major institutions,’’ the union’s submission states.

“(There are) never-ending consultancy-driven restructures in which everyone’s job is unsafe and for those who remain, the pressure of unbearable workloads is psychologically hazardous.

“Students are viewed as income that is never enough, and the staff … considered an over-budget expense needing ‘efficiency measures’.’’

The NTEU says university vice-chancellors’ salaries should be pegged to the pay of state premiers.

Dr Barnes is among six members of the NTEU called to give evidence at the inquiry’s first hearing, ahead of a rushed report due on April 4.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth will give evidence that her office has recovered more than $176m in unpaid or underpaid wages to more than 80,000 employees. The FWO has signed enforceable undertakings against five universities – the University of Newcastle, Charles Sturt University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney and the University of Technology Sydney.

It also secured $74,590 in court-ordered penalties against the University of Melbourne last year for taking adverse action against two casual academics for exercising their workplace right to make complaints or inquiries about their work.

“Further outcomes from ongoing investigations are anticipated,’’ Ms Booth states in her submission.

“The scale of noncompliance has been particularly disappointing given the university sector’s social licence, receipt of substantial taxpayer support, and because existing governance structures have regrettably not, in our experience, ensured workplace compliance.’’

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth has flagged ongoing action against universities over systemic wage theft. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The FWO will tell senators that a “lack of senior management oversight’’ and under-investment in human resource and payroll systems and auditing are to blame for the “sector-wide’’ wage theft.

Ms Booth said universities had misclassified duties, paid casual academics for every essay or exam marked, instead of using hourly rates, and had failed to pay minimum shifts or casual loadings in line with enterprise agreements.