Casual pay lands University of Melbourne in court

The Fair Work Ombudsman on Friday announced it was taking the university to Federal Court, claiming it failed to pay 14 casual academics for marking students' work in accordance with their enterprise agreements.

The debt allegedly racked up to more than $154,000, with staff members owed between about $930 and more than $30,140.

The staff affected by the historical issue had already been back-paid, a university representative said, and the institution had co-operated with the ombudsman's investigation.

"Separate to the proceedings, the university is working very hard on its remediation program, which has been under way for two years," the representative said.

"The university has publicly acknowledged and apologised to past and current employees who had been paid less than they were due for work that they had performed."

Rather than being paid in accordance with their enterprise agreements, the staff were instead allegedly paid for marking work based on differing "benchmarks".

Rates were based on criteria including 4000 words an hour and one hour per student, the ombudsman alleges.

Staff then had to put enter their hours into the university's human resources information system based on the benchmarks rather than what hours they actually worked.

The university's breaches of its enterprise agreements were "serious contraventions" of the Fair Work Act from September 2017, the ombudsman said.

The institution faces penalties of up to $630,000 per serious contravention.

The academics, who worked at the university's Parkville campus, are said to have been underpaid between February 2017 and December 2019.

A number of senior leaders in the arts faculty knew about the benchmarking practice and it continued despite concerns being raised in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, the ombudsman alleged.

The claims highlighted how the university had become the "wage theft capital" of the sector, the National Tertiary Education Union said.

"It illustrates how the insecure workforce approach of the university systematically results in exploitation and illegality," Victorian division assistant secretary Joo-Cheong Tham said.

National president Alison Barnes called for federal laws that criminalised wage theft, with strong penalties for the most egregious cases.

A date is yet to be set in the Federal Court for a directions hearing.

The ombudsman launched separate ongoing legal action against the university in August last year, alleging it threatened to cut the work of casual academics who wanted pay for working extra hours.

It also last year started back paying $22 million to about 15,000 current and former casual staff after many were incorrectly paid for minimum engagements or weekend work.

Australian Associated Press