Shining a spotlight on unlawful underpayment

NTEU appeared before the Senate Committee into unlawful underpayment of employees' remuneration to update it on recent developments around industrywide repayments, and the impact of COVID.

While we appeared almost a year ago and spoke of our experience of systematic and chronic underpayment of higher education workers, we were given the rare opportunity to provide an update.

National President, Dr Alison Barnes highlighted how the university sector has been hit particularly hard by COVID, with the collapse of international education, which universities relied on to subsidise teaching and research, followed by the Government’s disastrous Job-ready Graduates package, which stripped even more funding from universities during the worst financial losses ever seen. As a result, we saw thousands of jobs lost – some estimates of up to 35,000 – in public higher education institutions.

Importantly, Dr Barnes emphasised that real jobs were lost, not full-time equivalents, which is how the Government and university management prefer to calculate the hardworking people who teach, research and support thousands of students. This use of what is essentially a mathematical formula obscures the real numbers of university employees and dehumanises workers even more.

However, NTEU is very much aware of who the workers in our universities are. We know that higher education is a feminised industry, but not at senior management levels. We also know that it is one that relies on insecure employment, with only one in three jobs being permanent.

It is also one where underpayment – wage theft – is systematic and widespread. In a 2020 survey we undertook of 2,174 professional and academic staff at every university (except CDU) almost four in five academic respondents claimed one or other form of underpayment. In October 2021, the Fair Work Ombudsman announced that it was investigating 14 institutions over underpayment.

The Union is the first to welcome the spotlight that is now on the treatment of university employers. However, the NTEU has been pursuing pay justice for higher education workers – be those academics or professional staff – for many years.

Wage theft is a core Union concern. We have run campaigns and surveys, taken industrial action, pursued bargaining claims, raised disputes, exposed injustices in the media, lobbied politicians, provided briefings, made submissions and appeared before inquiries. We have had countless conversations with members who have been exploited, advocated on their behalf with recalcitrant managements, and taken industrial action to enforce their rights.

It has taken thousands of hours of work and dedicated resources by NTEU delegates, activists, members, staff and officials. It has been hard, but we have had wins, recouping millions; in the last few years, just from Victorian universities alone, around $30m has been refunded to underpaid staff, mostly casuals.

Unfortunately, this is the tip of the iceberg of what is really owed. That it is primarily the most precariously employed who are most vulnerable to wage theft is no coincidence – there is a clear link between underpayment and job insecurity. Insecurely employed workers are seen as the ‘cheapest’ labour and least likely to speak up should they be underpaid. They are often fearful of losing what work they may hope to get and university managements profit from this fear. Despite this, NTEU members have repeatedly taken the stand to give often shocking evidence to Government inquiries and hearings. Their individual accounts of the exploitation that permeates through our higher education system are compelling and informed through their own lived experiences.

At the Inquiry, Swinburne casual academic and NTEU member, David Harris spoke not only of chronic wage theft, but of demands for repayment by the University, who through their own error overpaid him and dozens of others.

Even worse, over the Christmas/New Year holiday, the University sent emails of demand to his university account – when he wasn’t employed at that time – and then engaged debt collectors who threatened his credit rating, all to recover a few hundred dollars. At the same time, the University owed him thousands of dollars.

One witness chose to present their evidence anonymously, fearing retributions would jeopardise future employment opportunities. However, they were able to describe how their university had not only repeatedly underpaid them but, after action was taken and the University admitted underpayment, only partly repaid what was owed.

Even worse, the witness detailed how management also took steps to prevent their conversion to permanent employment, despite our witness having met the work tests that otherwise would trigger conversion.

Another witness, Hayley Singer, told how she was even ‘paid’ for her work on a postgraduate advisory panel as a casual academic with a gift voucher. As she told the Inquiry, gift vouchers don’t pay rent, medical bills or transport costs, nor attract superannuation. It certainly isn’t appropriate payment for work the University wants and expects.

While being able to tell our political representatives about these and other similar experiences is vital in fighting the rhetoric of university managements who maintain there are no problems with their employment practices, there is more at stake. It is also an opportunity for NTEU members to have a direct and unfiltered voice to power, and to shine a light on the reality of what their lived experiences.

We have made important gains and had meaningful wins in the fight on wage theft and insecure employment, and the focus now is on employers – that we have come this far is due to the tireless work of our activists, our elected officials and staff and, most importantly, our members who have chosen to speak out. ◆

Terri MacDonald, Director (Policy & Research)