Wage theft is core university business

Damien Cahill, Assistant Secretary, NSW Division

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the destructive consequences of an over reliance on casual labour across the economy. One of the clearest examples of this over-reliance is in universities.

For the last two decades, as federal funding has stagnated, universities have leaned into international student fees on the revenue side, and casual workers on the expense side. This devolved the risks of the international student fee market to insecurely employed staff with few entitlements or employment rights.

Since the pandemic hit and international student fee income dried up, thousands of casual university staff have lost their jobs.

This is a devastating consequence of the central business model of universities intersecting with the Federal Government’s ideological aversion to universities accessing JobKeeper.

Uncovering the true extent of casualisation

University managers have shown a keenness to deny the extent of casualisation within the sector. They typically point to figures showing that on a full time equivalent (FTE) basis casuals comprise

only a small proportion of the workforce. But while universities are only required to report their staffing figures on an FTE basis, this underestimates the number of casual staff on a headcount basis.

Indeed, the NTEU estimates that the actual proportion of casual employees in Australian public universities is about 45% – with some universities much higher than this.

Just as university managers regularly deny the extent of casualisation, so are they keen to downplay the associated issue of wage theft. In a recent submission to the Senate Inquiry into Unlawful Underpayment of Employees’ Remuneration, the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA), an employer group representing universities, claimed that wage theft is not a systemic issue in Australian universities.

Yet we now know that in NSW alone, seven out of the eleven public universities have indicated that they are now being, or have recently been, audited for underpayment of staff – Sydney, UNSW, WSU, Newcastle, Wollongong, CSU and UNE. Three of these (UNSW, CSU and Wollongong) were only announced following pressure from the NTEU.

This is an indication of the scale of underpayments. Casuals are valued by well-paid vice-chancellors for more than just being able to have their employment cut at a moment’s notice. Casuals are prized recruits because they can be paid less than they are owed. Such wage theft has become systematic and routinised within universities.

Forms of underpayment

There are several common forms of underpayment for casual workers.

The first is a semantic sleight of hand where managers classify teaching work in a way that attracts a lower rate of pay. For example, tutorials are regularly classified as ‘demonstrations’, meaning the casual is paid less for the same type of work.

Last year at Macquarie University the NTEU won about $50,000 in underpayments for causal staff whose tutorials had been re-classified as ‘small group teaching activities’ with a lower rate of pay.

Similarly, at the University of Western Australia, tutorials have been classified as ‘information sessions’, thus attracting a lower rate of pay.

Another frequent source of underpayment is the failure to pay casuals their full entitlements. For example casual professional staff are entitled to a be paid for a minimum number of hours per engagement, but this might be ignored by university payroll systems, which only look at time sheets.

This is why auditors have been called into the University of Sydney where it seems casual workers may have been underpaid millions of dollars over many years.

Similarly, the University of Newcastle recently revealed underpayments of over $6 million for incorrect calculations relating to span of hours and overtime.

But perhaps the most common and insidious form of wage theft is requiring casuals to work for no pay. Typically, key tasks simply aren’t part of a casual worker’s contract, yet are expected to be completed.

This could be consultation with students, class preparation, familiarisation with labyrinthine policies or setting unrealistic timeframes to complete marking.

At the University of Melbourne, for example, the Fair Work Ombudsman is investigating underpayments in relation to casual marking on the back of an NTEU campaign around the improper use of piece rates, rather than payment for the hours worked. About $1million has already been paid out.

The Union is in dispute with management at RMIT over a similar issue. In many cases, however, because of their precarious employment and fear of losing work, casuals can be reluctant to raise underpayments with their supervisors.

Much of the work performed by casual staff is regular, ongoing and stable over time. It is not actually casual in nature. Student enrolments, for example, which drives teaching work, is quite steady year on year.

Solving the crisis

The solution is simple: end the overreliance of universities on casuals. Just a few months ago, such a proposal may have sounded outlandish. But unprecedented times demand new solutions. And moving casual university work into salaried positions with greater security and employment rights would be good for staff, good for students, and good for the community. ◆