The wage theft crisis at Monash University has widened, with the University admitting further instances of unlawful underpayments to staff in recent days.
As a result of industrial action by the National Tertiary Education Union, Monash University admitted to $8.6 million in stolen wages dating back to 2014 in September.
The University made a voluntary disclosure to the Fair Work Ombudsman and back payments to underpaid tutors have begun to roll out this month. The University claims that all wage theft ceased before 30 June 2020.
Now, the University has admitted to further underpayments, as recently as last week.
Monash University has contacted staff in the Monash Education Academy admitting to underpayments, due to staff not being paid for their minimum shift hours. It has already begun to made back payments.
Staff in the Monash Library system have also not been paid penalty rates in recent weeks.
The NTEU believes the $8.6 million admitted to by the University in September is just the tip of the iceberg. We have gathered detailed evidence of teachers and professional staff being underpaid:
- Casual teaching staff are not being paid the correct rates for teaching and marking
- Library staff are not being paid appropriate penalty rates
- Professional staff are being instructed to fudge their electronic rosters, so the University can get out of giving them minimum shift hours
- Full-time academics are having their academic workloads manipulated to impose hundreds of hours a year of unpaid overtime
Questions also need to be asked about the probity of Monash University’s governance and risk management policies and procedures.
The chair of the University’s audit committee, Mr Peter Young QC, has helmed that committee for a number of years – years in which the University has now admitted to widespread unlawful underpayment of teachers.
Despite the fact the University itself admits it began auditing its books for underpayments in early 2020, no disclosure of the issue was made in the 2020 Monash University Annual Report, released in mid-2021.
The NTEU questions whether Monash University misled a Senate Committee last year. In a written submission to the Senate Economics References Committee in September 2020, the University’s then-Chief Human Resources Officer, Ms Brigid Connors, wrote that “Monash currently has no claims of underpayment from current academic casual staff” and that “Monash staff are paid in compliance with Monash’s legal obligations.”
At the time the University made this written submission to the Senate, Monash was already conducting an audit of underpayments. The University first became aware of underpayments to tutors in the Faculty of Engineering in early 2019, and made a series of back payments in December 2019.
The NTEU has twice sought a meeting between underpaid staff members and the Provost, Professor Sue Elliott AM. She has refused.
The University has also refused to release a copy or
