Deakin joins list of universities underpaying staff   :(
Another major Australian university has confessed to underpaying staff, with the union saying the issue is widespread.


News.com.au
May 30, 2024

Deakin University has admitted to wage theft in its arts and education faculties, but the tertiary education union says the theft is more widespread and it ‘may be forced’ to take the matter to Federal Court.

Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin emailed staff on Wednesday saying the university had underpaid casual academics in the two schools, via a ‘misapplication of marking formulas used to calculate the pay of sessional academic staff’.

The “inadvertent underpayment of some sessional academics” was identified and disclosed by the university, the vice-chancellor said.

“This should not have occurred.”

The known underpayments relate to casual, or ‘sessional’, academic staff.
The disparity stems from payments per-hour versus per-paper marked.

The university brought in law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth and financial services giant Deloitte to review the relevant payment practices.

The review has focused on the schools of communications and creative arts, and humanities and social sciences within those arts and education faculties.

“We are committed to expanding this review to determine whether there are any other affected sessional academic staff in other areas of the University,” Professor Martin writes in the email.

The National Tertiary Education Union claims underpayments “could exceed” $10m, and reckons there is evidence of underpayments in other schools, not just in arts and education.   :(



The Deakin vice-chancellor says the underpayments ‘should not have occurred’.

The union wants broader repayments and “may be forced to initiate Federal Court action” if management doesn’t make a full admission.

“Deakin management’s refusal to admit a clear-cut case of wage theft for two whole years is a disgrace,” the union’s Victorian secretary Sarah Roberts said.

“Unfortunately, Deakin has only fessed up to stealing wages in two schools, but we won’t rest until this entire systematic scandal is fully exposed and every cent owed repaid,” she said.

The union argues payment per assignment marked – a piece rate – versus an hourly rate, better reflects the time needed to properly mark assessments.

“As late as February this year, management was still insisting the piece rate used to fleece workers didn’t exist – despite staff presenting rock solid evidence,” Ms Robert said.

The union says it lodged a dispute with Deakin about “systemic” underpayments, and the university self-reported underpayments in the arts and education schools to the Fair Work Ombudsman.


Staff at the universities of Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong, Queensland and Tasmania, UNSW and Monash University have variously underpaid staff for casual work or in superannuation in the past seven years.



Huge financial blow for university
“It’s absolutely shameful that just one day after the University of Queensland admitted to $8m in wage theft, Deakin has been added to the ever-growing list of university wage thieves,” National Tertiary Education Union president Alison Barnes.   :(

The union’s Wage Theft Report, released last year, found Australian higher education workers were underpaid $83.4m during the past three years.

“We need to end the insecure work crisis and implement a proper governance system if we’re serious about having the universities Australia deserves,” Dr Barnes said.

"Wage theft" - typical inflamatory union bluster. How is this calculated? Union members (higher ed is the most unionised sector with about 30% in a union) are surveyed about how badly done by they feel and that's extrapolated to the whole university/sector.
But.

Casual staff work with time sheets - they are required to keep track of their hours and yes, there can be problems with time allocated for casual academic work like  marking, student consultation,  etc. Casual non-academic staff work the hours they are paid for.

Permanent professional staff have time sheets and flexible working hours so if they work more in a 4 week period than the set 35 or 37.5 hours, they get flex time off in lieu.

Permanent academic staff:  no time sheets, they have entirely fexible working hours. Yes, they are given ridiculous admin tasks.

Higher education is huge, massive enrolments, massive complexity. But wage "theft" is ridiculous. Higher education unions, especially the NTEU, are the last, subborn vestiges of the Stalinist mindset. Attending a brach meeting is like time travel to Moscow, 1949.  :D

Never mind the "wage theft" ...

how about our University Chancellors/Vice Chancellors & administrators show some balls and clamp down on all the pro-Palestinian protesting students set up in camps on Uni campuses ...get the Police in and charge them and any non students in attendance for trespass and hate speech.

where they harass, abuse and threaten Jewish students daily ....

then demand that Universities cut all ties with any Israeli research interests etc.

They aren't a political party nor do they have any right to be telling Universities what to do....

the whole lot of them should be expelled for their anti-Semitism/racism... the ignorant fools.

Gnads wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 9:53am:

Never mind the "wage theft" ... how about our University Chancellors/Vice Chancellors & administrators show some balls and clamp down on all the pro-Palestinian protesting students set up in camps on Uni campuses ...get the Police in and charge them and any non students in attendance for trespass and hate speech. where they harass, abuse and threaten Jewish students daily .... then demand that Universities cut all ties with any Israeli research interests etc. They aren't a political party nor do they have any right to be telling Universities what to do.... the whole lot of them should be expelled for their anti-Semitism/racism... the ignorant fools.

Exactly - round 'em up, run 'em out, cancel their student status, and leave 'em with a self-imposed HECS bill.

Balls?  They're all phar ken sheilas these days ... they're all terrified to appoint men ... why do you think 'management' - which is all these turkeys are in reality - has no balls for anything - never takes a stand or shows guts?  Maybe they should sing 'em a lullaby!