RMIT and the NTEU lock horns over $17m ‘underpayments’

RMIT University is battling the academics’ union over allegations it underpaid staff by $17m, and two regulators are involved.

Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker says the investigation of universities’ alleged underpayment of staff is putting a strain on the regulator’s resources. Picture: Aaron Francis

The academics’ union has sent a wage theft claim of up to $17m against RMIT University to the Fair Work Commission in an ­effort to force a resolution to the dispute over underpayment of casual academics for the past six years.

The $17m claim by the Nat­ional Tertiary Education Union is its largest ever in the growing scandal of underpayment by universities to their casual staff.

In September. the University of Sydney admitted it had underpaid nearly $13m to casuals from 2014 and 2020, and now faces a claim for a further $2m.

Also in September, the University of Melbourne paid $9.5m to more than 1000 casual academics and Monash conceded it had underpaid many of its academic casuals over the past 6½ years by a total of $8.6m.

Fourteen universities, including RMIT, are being investigated for underpayment of wages, Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker said in September.

The NTEU’s referral of RMIT to the commission alleges that since 2014, it has paid academic casuals the “standard” rate of pay for marking instead of the required “academic judgment” rate of pay.

The union’s Victorian assistant secretary, Sarah Roberts, said the difference in pay rates was about $20 an hour.

A university spokesperson said RMIT took its obligations under its enterprise agreements very seriously and was committed to ensuring employees had received their full entitlements.

“The university is meeting again with the NTEU this Friday and will continue to do so in good faith to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson said.

The union lodged a dispute with RMIT in June over the issue and said although it had since met twice with the management and shared “thousands of pages of evidence”, the university was yet to comment on its proposed resolution, which is a comprehensive audit and full backpay to past and present staff.

“We have attempted to resolve this with the university, and get casual academics what they are rightfully owed, but RMIT refuses to work with us,” Ms Roberts said.

She said the union had surveyed staff to get a rough idea of underpayments then extrapolated from 2014, when the distinction between standard and academic judgment dates was introduced.

During a joint webinar with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency last month, Ms Parker said “instances of large-scale systemic ­underpayment of employee wages, particularly the wages of casual academics and casual ­professional staff” in the ­university sector totalled millions of dollars so far.

She said the investigations under way into 14 universities presented “a challenge for us as a regulator … It has put a strain on our resources that would otherwise be used to help vulnerable workers and small business.”