University of Melbourne repays $9.5m it owes to casual academics

The University of Melbourne has repaid $9.5m to over 1000 casual academics after years of underpaying them.

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell. Picture: Mark Stewart

The University of Melbourne has repaid $9.5m to more than 1000 casual academics after years of underpaying them for teaching responsibilities, and promised a continuing investigation that could result in more repayments.

Vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell made a public apology for the underpayments on Thursday, saying they represented “a systemic failure of respect from this institution for those valued, indeed vital employees”.

“This failure should not, and will not, be tolerated by our institution,” he said. “Putting things right will take time but a great deal of work has already been done, and is continuing as a matter of priority.”

The National Tertiary Education Union, which has been in negotiation with the university about the underpayment of casually employed staff since 2019, welcomed the repayments but questioned Professor Maskell's sincerity.

“If the vice-chancellor was serious about dealing with wage theft, he would be converting long-term casual tutors into permanent teaching and research positions,” said Annette Herrera, president of the University of Melbourne branch of the union.

“Unless Professor Maskell’s apology leads to a significant increase in conversion of this staff to permanent and stable work, this apology rings hollow.” She said one casual teacher was owed $80,000 in back pay and total repayments could reach $15m.

The union estimates that 55 per cent of the university’s ­employees are casual and thus in insecure employment.

The University of Melbourne is not alone in underpaying its casual employees. Last year, the University of Sydney said it owed casual staff up to $6m for underpayments in 2019 and when underpayments in previous years were included, the total could be tens of millions of dollars.

Several other universities are in discussions with the union over underpayments to casuals.

Professor Maskell said repayments had been made to casuals in five of the University of Melbourne’s nine faculties.

Ms Herrera said there were three main reasons why casual academics had been underpaid at the university.

One was that the marking of assessments was often paid as piece work, which did not reflecting the time needed for the task.

Another was that tutors were not being paid to attend student lectures, even when this was required so they were familiar with what material was being taught.

A third was their work had been misclassified, such as calling a tutorial a practice class, leading to it being paid at the wrong rate.

Nick Robinson, a University of Melbourne casual academic who represents them on the union branch committee, said there had been a “systemic culture of underpayment” and the insecurity of casual employment meant people were reluctant to speak up.

In a letter to staff, Professor Maskell said the university was continuing to contact casual academics in two faculties – Arts and Fine Arts and Music – “and we have invited them to make claims for previously unreported hours of work for marking and lecture attendance”.

He said the university’s employment practices were being comprehensively reviewed. “We have taken steps through mandatory training, guidance notes and employment practice reviews to ensure those with responsibility for engaging casual staff have a clear understanding of and adherence to the terms of casual employment,” he said.