‘Wage theft’: Sydney commits to A$23 million backpay programme

Australia’s oldest university has become the latest to sign a binding commitment with the workplace watchdog, agreeing to make good more than A$23 million (£11.6 million) of underpayments and accept a A$500,000 fine.

The “enforceable undertaking” with the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) also requires the University of Sydney to train managers about employee entitlements and to make workplace law obligations a “standing agenda item” in governing body meetings.

Fair work ombudsman Anna Booth said the university had acknowledged its “governance failures and breaches” and taken corrective measures to compensate staff and improve future compliance.

She said the university’s efforts would improve information-sharing between employees and the leadership, “boosting worker voice” to help resolve any future underpayment issues.

The FWO said Sydney had so far calculated that it owed more than A$19 million in wages and entitlements to around 14,700 current and former employees, for work performed between early 2014 and mid-2022, along with more than A$4 million in interest and superannuation.

Sydney said it had told the regulator about its “risk of non-compliance” with its payment obligations back in 2020. It had already repaid around A$20.5 million to more than 11,700 staff after reviewing more than 2.5 million payslips, and was hunting for additional underpayments through a manual analysis of casual academics’ work records across 13 semesters.

The university has also set aside more than A$70 million to cover “potential underpayment liabilities” based on “extrapolated assumptions while investigations are completed”, it said.

Provost Annamarie Jagose apologised for the “deeply regrettable” underpayments. “It’s imperative we pay our people correctly for the valuable work they do. It is central to our values of trust and accountability, and we are committed to getting this right.”

She said administrators were “advancing a large programme of work” to ensure staff were paid appropriately, proper records were kept and newly identified underpayments were remediated in full.

The University of Melbourne recently signed a similar undertaking committing it to complete a massive A$72 million repayment programme. The University of Technology Sydney, the University of Newcastle and Charles Sturt University have also entered enforceable undertakings with the FWO.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com