University of Melbourne accused of underpaying casual staff

The FWO alleges the breaches are ‘serious contraventions’ meaning the potential maximum penalties are 10 times higher than the penalties that would otherwise apply.

The Fair Work Ombudsman announced on Friday that it had launched Federal Court action against the University of Melbourne.

The University of Melbourne has been accused of underpaying ­casual staff and making false or misleading records over a period of almost three years.

The Fair Work Ombudsman announced on Friday that it had launched Federal Court action against the university, alleging it failed to pay 14 casual academics for all hours of marking work at the hourly rates required under its enterprise agreements.

According to the FWO, the Faculty of Arts staff at the university’s Parkville campus were paid based on “benchmarks”, leading to them being collectively underpaid $154,424.

Examples of the “benchmarks”, which varied depending on the school in the faculty, ­included payment for marking at a rate based on “4000 words per hour” and at one school on “one hour per student”.

Individual underpayments ranged from $927 to $30,140 and occurred between February 2017 and December 2019.

Staff allegedly had to enter their hours worked into the ­university’s human resources ­information system according to the benchmarks, rather than ­according to the actual hours worked.

The FWO alleged the university failed to record all hours worked by the casual academics, and that the university made and kept records known to some managers within the faculty to be false or misleading.

The regulator alleges the ­enterprise agreement breaches are “serious contraventions” under the Fair Work Act, which means the potential maximum penalties are 10 times higher than the penalties that would otherwise apply.

In addition to penalties for the alleged serious contraventions of up to $630,000 per breach, the university faces up to $63,000 per breach for the other allegations.

The FWO alleges the univer­sity expressly, tacitly or impliedly authorised the contraventions because of a corporate culture ­involving the use of marking benchmarks.

It is also alleged that a number of specific senior leaders in the faculty knew of the benchmarking practices and that they ­resulted in employees not being paid for all time spent marking.

Fair Work Ombudsman ­Sandra Parker said allegations of “universities underpaying their employees by systematically ­failing to follow their own enterprise agreements are of great ­concern”.

Three of the academics held a PhD for at least part of their employment, which entitled them to higher hourly rates under the ­enterprise agreements. At least 12 of the employees have been fully back paid.

It is the second FWO action taken against the university. The regulator alleges the university coerced and took adverse action against two casual academics to stop them from claiming payment for work performed.

In a statement on Friday, the university said the legal proceedings related to a “historical issue” of underpayment of casual staff, and they had been back paid.

But the FWO said the conduct occurred up to the end of 2019, a little over three years ago.