La Trobe University will pay 6,700 staff $10.77m in unpaid wages, plus super and interest owed over nearly seven years. Plus, it will contribute $220,000 to the Commonwealth, to demonstrate contrition. It will put procedures and policies in place to do what it is legally required to comply with workplace laws.
LT U is the latest university to be penalised for breaches of its own enterprise agreements by the Fair Work Ombudsman, following Uni Sydney, Uni Melbourne, UTS, Uni Newcastle and Charles Sturt U. The Ombudsman has also won a Federal Court case against Uni Melbourne over staff not being paid correctly and is not pursuing Uni NSW.
This case is similar to most of the predecessors, with people not paid the rate for work set out in the university’s enterprise agreement. Most of the cases involved casual academics not receiving the agreed rates for marking and teaching. “The underpayments were caused by systemic failures in compliance, central oversight and governance processes, with schools adopting differing payroll practices,” the FWO states.
Some 35 staffers were underpaid $20,000 plus – one individual is owed $90,000.
FWO Anna Booth acknowledged the university for admitting its errors and working to correct them, but her office still imposed an “enforceable undertaking” which requires LT U to improve performance. It includes, better processes, staff training, written guidelines on what is actually in the 2023 enterprise agreement and a pay complaints and review mechanism. Demonstrating the FWO requires change to occur across the whole university, it specifies La Trobe’s governing council must “explicitly focus on workplace relations compliance.”
LT U knew it had a problem in December 2020, when it asked casual staff who thought they had not been paid the correct rate for work to get in touch. The FWO has been on the university’s case since March 2021 and that June, La Trobe commissioned an independent audit.
The timing could be worse for La Trobe U, although it is hard to see how. A Senate committee is inquiring into university governance.
