The University of Wollongong joins the rogues’ gallery of seven other universities hit with enforceable undertakings by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Plus, it must make a $130,000 “contrition payment” to the Feds. It is for underpaying 5,340 staff $4.9m across a decade to 2024, which, with interest and super, totals $6.3m. Most already have their money.
UoW did not know it was underpaying people until staffers asked questions. “Key causes of the widespread underpayments were the university’s poor governance processes as well as fundamental payroll system errors,” the FWO states.
This is a common issue with pay failures across HE, with staff simply not understanding terms in enterprise agreements.
As with other enforceable undertakings, the Ombudsman requires UoW management to lift its governance game, including creating standing consultations involving staff, management and the National Tertiary Education Union on workplace relations compliance and more staff training on Fair Work obligations.
However, this is lenient compared to other universities, notably Uni Melbourne, which the Ombudsman ordered to establish Council and Executive sub-committees on compliance.
But the FWO is not done with UoW – there are two un-reported outstanding matters, although the FWO’s mind is made up, stating, “the university will make a second contrition payment.”
This is not UoW’s first affront to the right of staff to receive what they are owed. A decade back it had to make up $10m for staff who had not had the correct amounts deposited in their superannuation accounts over eight years.
As of March, the Ombudsman reported it had recovered $176m for 80,000 underpaid higher education staff across the system between 2019-2024. “The scale of non-compliance has been particularly disappointing given the university sector’s social licence, receipt of substantial taxpayer support, and because existing governance structures have regrettably not, in our experience, ensured workplace compliance,” it submitted to a Senate committee.
The FWO’s next scalp is expected to be an announcement of an outcome in its long-running case against Uni NSW.