A recent internal audit has revealed that the Australian Catholic University (ACU) underpaid casual sessional academic staff by a total of $3.6 million between 2016 and 2023.
This wage theft, stemming from incorrect calculations of wage entitlements, is believed to have affected approximately 1,100 staff with PhD qualifications and unit coordinator positions.
These findings come only one month after the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) reported that more than 97,000 employees across Australian universities have been underpaid $158.7 million cumulatively since 2014.
Notably, incidents of wage theft at ACU were not listed in this report.
Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Zlatko Skrbis reportedly emailed affected former and current staff on January 17th to assure them that “the underpayment will be paid in full, with interest, as soon as possible.”
The results of this audit have also been disclosed to the Fair Work Ombudsman, NTEU, Community and Public Sector Union, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, the Australian Taxation Office, and UniSuper.
In response, the NTEU released a statement condemning this “systematic and sector-wide issue that needs to be addressed immediately [because] we need governance reform now.”
Honi spoke to Associate Professor Leah Kaufmann, the NTEU Branch President for ACU, who noted that she has “heard from more casuals this week than [she has] in a year.”
She stated that the third party investigation into underpayment, conducted by Deloitte, occurred without the consultation or inclusion of NTEU branch staff. “They didn’t involve us at any level.”
The investigation occurred while NTEU branch members were raising individual cases of underpayment. Kaufmann noted that ACU staff have won individual underpayment disputes, however, “[staff] haven’t had any attempt to put together a collective case, and that’s been a difficulty.”
Kaufmann noted that casualisation and precarity of work have rendered staff nervous to make such disputes – “With the number of job losses we’ve had, the few casuals who’d be interested in fighting [underpayment] would be nervous to do so.”
Despite ACU taking steps to rectify this issue – Kaufmann advocated for staff involvement in the consultation and resolution process. “I don’t understand why it is we were not consulted.” “The management groups that we deal with keep telling us that [underpayment] is not an issue,” while investigating underpayment without staff knowledge.
Kaufmann acknowledged ACU’s reimbursement commitment, calling for more transparency for university staff moving forward – “I’m hoping what we will see will be a new openness – because we haven’t had a lot of access to that.”
