Australian universities don’t just sometimes fail to pay staff the agreed rate for their work – Troy Heffernan (Uni Manchester) and Kathleen Smithers (Charles Sturt U) have published a new paper arguing that they exploit academics by, “requiring staff to complete work, for which they will not be paid, if they hope to be considered for promotion.”
They make their case on the basis of four requirements found in openly-available statements of promotion expectations from 34 universities.
- Working at the level above: 11 universities required applicants for a higher graded position to already be working at that level. “If a university requires someone to complete tasks for which they are not getting paid, the university is thus necessitating them to engage in wage theft practices, in this instance, under the justification of possible academic promotion, ” Heffernan and Smithers state.
- Another 11 required applicants to demonstrate they are already at the minimum standard for the higher-level post they want. The authors state that, “there is some expectation people will have proven themselves by working at the level above for some portion of time – noting here any period of time working at the level above what someone is being paid for is wage theft, no matter how the university policies attempt to justify their requirements.”
- Working at the level above their current one in all areas: some universities require performance at “minimum standard” at the higher level job, without making clear how they can be met, or what evidence shows that they have been.
- Demonstrating capacity/potential for a higher grade: “having to argue that someone can work at the level to which they are seeking promotion is commendable and rare when most other universities rely on largely exploitative work practices,” the authors argue. However, they add that the best way for a candidate to do it is a track record showing they already are.
Take-outs: “What the university sector has achieved in promotion requirements is both devious and masterful. That a sector has legitimised a method to make people work partially, or wholly, at a more senior level for an extended period of time without adequate pay has undoubtedly been a tactic that has resulted in millions of dollars in savings. At the same time, these tactics have allowed the sector to stall the promotion aspirations of thousands of academics which will have motivated the academics to continue working harder without higher remuneration.”
