James Cook Uni says it may have underpaid casual employees

James Cook University has told the Fair Work Ombudsman it may have underpaid casual employees and has launched a full review.

James Cook University told the Fair Work Ombudsman that it may have underpaid some of its casual employees and has launched a full review. Picture: Marc McCormack

James Cook University has reported itself to the Fair Work Ombudsman after discovering it may have underpaid some of its casual employees because of problems with its payroll systems and processes.

Vice-chancellor Simon Biggs said the university had formed a project team to comb through its payroll records.

“We have also informed the Fair Work Ombudsman of our decision to undertake a comprehensive review and will be in regular communication with them,” he said.

The National Tertiary Education Union said that, on early indications, it believed over 7,500 current and former JCU staff have been affected but it was not yet clear how much they had been underpaid by.

The union said the latest evidence of underpayment followed its discovery in 2022 that 2000 JCU staff had been underpaid superannuation benefits of about $1 million over an 11 year period.

JCU vice-chancellor Simon Biggs

The university said it had discovered potential non-compliance with the enterprise agreement it has with its staff relating to minimum hours worked and other entitlements for casuals.

Professor Biggs said the university deeply regretted the situation. “I’d like to assure impacted staff that any required remediation is considered a matter of urgency by the university,” he said.

“Our focus is firmly on ensuring our casual staff members are being paid correctly and the rectification of any past issues.”

He said that it was still to be determined how many staff members had been affected. He added that the university would also ensure that its processes and systems were more robust in dealing with such payroll issues in the future.

In the past few years over half of Australia’s universities have had to repay casual staff after underpaying their wages or superannuation entitlements, with seven of them owing more than $10 million. Most notably the University of Melbourne owed over $30 million, the University of Wollongong $18 million and the University of Sydney nearly $15 million.

The NTEU says that the total of what it terms “wage theft” is now $170 million.

The NTEU’s Queensland secretary Michael McNally said the union appreciated that the university had self-reported the matter and had agreed to work constructively with the NTEU to resolve the underpayments.

“But it’s clear there are deep systemic problems in the sector fuelling widespread wage theft,” McNally said.

“Federal and state governments must act on the failure of university governance and the consequent explosion in insecure work that has fostered the wage theft crisis in universities.

“Without major reform through the Universities Accord response, unfortunately we will see more higher education staff having wages and entitlements stolen.”

Jonathan Strauss, the NTEU branch president at JCU, said it was “essential that every cent owed … is paid back in full”.

“JCU is a major employer in Cairns and Townsville. It’s critical that the entire community has faith the university is paying staff, particularly their lowest paid staff, properly.”