24/11/2020
Wage theft and casual work are built into university business models
Read more: Shocking yet not surprising: wage theft has become a culturally accepted
part of business
How are casuals underpaid?
There are several common forms of underpayment for casual workers.
The first is a semantic sleight of hand where managers classify teaching work in a way that attracts a
lower rate of pay. For example, tutorials are regularly classified as “demonstrations”, meaning the
casual is paid less for the same type of work.
Last year at Macquarie University the NTEU negotiated about A$50,000 in back payments for casual
staff whose tutorials had been reclassified as “small group teaching activities” with a lower rate of pay.
Similarly, at the University of Western Australia, tutorials have been classified as “information
sessions” that attract a lower rate of pay.
One form of wage theft is when tutorials are reclassified so the hourly rate of pay is lower. Shutterstock
Another frequent source of underpayment is a failure to pay casuals their full entitlements. For
example, casual workers are entitled to be paid for a minimum number of hours per engagement, but
university payroll systems, which only look at time sheets, might ignore this. This is why auditors
have been called into Sydney University where casual workers might have been underpaid as much as
A$30 million over six years.
But perhaps the most common and insidious form of wage theft is requiring casuals to work for no
pay. Typically, key tasks simply aren’t part of a casual worker’s contract, yet are expected to be
https://theconversation.com/wage-theft-and-casual-work-are-built-into-university-business-models-147555
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