Union win! $6m in casual wage theft uncovered at UniMelb

Sarah Roberts, Assistant Secretary, Victorian Division

In late 2018, NTEU became aware of instances of underpayment of casual academic staff in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Melbourne. The Faculty had promoted information on its website failing to disclose that all casual marking was required to be paid separately, and had been required to pay for it separately since 2013.

The Union commenced a formal dispute with the University around this, claiming that casual academics were accordingly underpaid thousands as they had not been paid for much of the marking they had performed – going back years. At that time, the University resisted the Union’s claim, which led the Union to become further concerned about instances of casual wage theft more broadly across the University. Organising staff and activists built a casuals network of members across the University, meeting regularly at School and University level to uncover and discuss further instances of wage theft.

"Ultimately the Union’s activity became so annoying that the University called the NTEU into dispute

Through this process wage theft in the Faculties of Arts, Mathematics and Statistics, and Fine Arts and Music were uncovered. In Arts, casuals were being paid a ‘piece rate’ for their marking, whereby instead of being paid by the hour as required by the Collective Agreement, they were being paid an hour’s pay for each 4000 words marked, which casuals agreed was a significant underquote of the time actually taken to mark assignments. In Maths and Stats, tutorials had been renamed as ‘practice classes’, thereby avoiding paying the casual academics teaching those classes 3 hours’ pay, as required for a tutorial. This was in breach of the UniMelb Agreement provision which described tutorials as a secondary form of educational delivery – which the ‘practice classes’ certainly were. Due to this practice casuals were being underpaid by one hour’s pay for each tutorial delivered – going back to 2009.

Then, in early 2019, the Faculty of Arts announced it would no longer pay casual academic staff for attendance at lectures for the subjects they were delivering tutorials – but yet announced that attendance was ‘voluntary’ (i.e. deliberately unpaid). This outraged casual staff. In the words of one casual staff member, ‘the University wants tutorials to be taught by staff who know less about the material taught in the lecture than the students.’ Angry members conducted a rally and occupied the Dean of Arts’ office, presenting him with a petition calling for payment for lecture attendance. The Union continued to act like an annoying buzzy mosquito, contacting Deans in each of the Faculties where wage theft had been uncovered, and calling for responses from management. Ultimately the Union’s activity became so annoying that the University called the NTEU into dispute – previously unheard of at the University of Melbourne. Two disputes meetings with management ensured. At the first meeting, 25 casual academic staff attended and told their stories to management about their experiences of wage theft. Many management misconceptions as to how work and non-payment was actually structured were corrected, and casuals were empowered by the process. At the second meeting, 22 casuals attended and again told their stories – leading to an immediate reversal of tutorial reclassification as ‘practice classes’ in Maths and Stats. This disputes process led to the acceptance on management’s part that illegal practices had been going on, and the establishment of a union-management working group to deal with all instances of casual underpayment. That working group had control over all communications sent to staff affected.

So far over $99,000 has been paid to casual academics in Engineering. Other payments are being processed, and our estimation is that the total amount owed will be close to $6m. The Fair Work Ombudsman is also now investigating. The UniMelb experience is a great example of how we can win by organising and acting collectively to enforce our rights. In circumstances where members often feel intimidated by coming forward with their issues, for fear of losing their (insecure) work, collective action and power in numbers has been the antidote.

Now on to the next win!