The Melbourne-based university has signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman
Monash University will repay $20.7 million to 10,877 current and former employees after admitting to widespread underpayments over an 11-year period and entering into an enforceable undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO).
The repayments – covering work performed between January 2014 and January 2025 – include almost $15 million in underpaid wages, more than $3.8 million in interest, and about $1.9 million in superannuation.
To date, about $20.5 million has already been remediated to more than 10,400 workers, with Monash committing to rectify all outstanding underpayments in full.
The underpayments mainly affected casual academic sessional staff and a smaller number of casual research assistants across all 10 of the university’s faculties.
The scale of the problem varied significantly by faculty, with around 26% of staff in information technology and in medicine, nursing and health sciences underpaid.
In engineering the figure was about 18%, and in science about 15%. At the other end of the spectrum, less than 1% of staff in law and in art, design and architecture were underpaid, and less than 2% in arts.
Despite the widespread underpayments, FWO Anna Booth said Monash deserves credit for its acknowledgement and commitment to rectifying issues.
“The matter serves as a warning of the significant long-running problems that can result from an employer failing to have appropriate checks and balances to ensure workplace compliance. We expect universities to meet their legal obligations under their own enterprise agreements,” said Booth.
Monash’s errors included failing to pay correct rates for original and repeat tutorials, not meeting minimum engagement obligations for activities performed, and underpaying for original lectures and tutorials.
The university also failed to provide entitlements required under multiple enterprise agreements.
Monash self-reported non-compliance to the FWO in September 2021 after identifying underpayments and made a further disclosure in December 2024.
Individual underpayments ranged from less than $5 to more than $210,000, including interest and superannuation. Average underpayments were about $5,300 in the 2021 disclosure and about $1,000 in the later one.
As part of the EU, Monash will pay a $350,000 contrition payment to the Commonwealth’s Consolidated Revenue Fund and implement a comprehensive package of compliance measures.
These include establishing a tripartite Compliance Reference Group involving management, employees and the union; sending an all-staff email and writing to former staff about the EU; improving and streamlining timesheet and teaching calendar systems; training all managers who approve timesheets on correct casual pay provisions; commissioning an independent audit; maintaining a complaints and review mechanism; and embedding ongoing Fair Work compliance oversight through its council’s Audit and Risk Committee.
The FWO has identified systemic non-compliance in the university sector as a priority since 2022 and has now entered into 10 Enforceable Undertakings with institutions, including QUT, the University of Wollongong, Griffith University, La Trobe University, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Newcastle and Charles Sturt University.
Separately, the regulator has secured court penalties against the University of Melbourne, and legal proceedings against the University of NSW are ongoing.
