Monash University underpaid casual staff by $8.6m

First the universities of Sydney and Melbourne, and now Monash. The underpayment of casual university staff is a growing scandal.

Monash University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner apologised for the errors. Photo: Ian Currie

The underpayment scandal in Australia’s top universities is growing, with Monash University on Thursday conceding it has systematically underpaid many of its casual academics and owes them $8.6m for work done over the past 6½ years.

The university admitted it used “inconsistent descriptions of teaching activities”, which led to 8 per cent of its academic casual staff being underpaid for the level of work they were doing.

The underpayments at Monash follow admissions earlier this month by the University of Sydney and University of Melbourne that they have also systematically underpaid casual employees for many years.

The University of Sydney will repay nearly 13,000 casual mainly non-academic staff $12.75m for lost wages back to 2014 and the University of Melbourne said it had repaid $9.5m to more than 1000 casual academics.

Several other universities are in discussions with the National Tertiary Education Union over long-term underpayment of casual staff.

Monash branch president of the NTEU, Ben Eltham, said the main cause of the “wage theft” was the reclassification by the university of lectures and tutorials delivered by casual staff as workshops, practicals or laboratory sessions.

“Staff are paid at the ‘other required academic activity’ hourly rate, rather than the appropriate rate for lectures or tutorials,” Dr Eltham said.

Some staff were being paid at only one-third of the appropriate rate and many staff were not being paid for time spent in preparation, he said.

“The practice is widespread and pervasive across the university. Senior managers including the vice-chancellor, provost and chief operating officer were all aware of it,” he said.

Dr Eltham said he would not be surprised if the amount repaid to staff by the university ended up being more than $8.6m.

“We think there are probably plenty of stones they haven’t turned over,” he said.

“It’s really time for the regulators to step up. The fact is that this activity has been going on for years under the noses of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and the Fair Work Ombudsman.”

Monash vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner offered staff her “sincere apologies” and said the errors were “unintentional”.

“The university is strongly committed to ensuring all staff are paid correctly and in accordance with the university enterprise agreement and all relevant legislation,” she said in an email to staff.

According to the university most of the underpayments ($7.7m) came about because of incorrect descriptions of teaching activities. Errors on time sheets were responsible for the remainder.

Professor Gardner said the review which revealed the errors had checked over 1.8 million timesheets and 287,500 pages of documentation. She said that systems would be changed and improved “to prevent this occurring in future”.