The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association calls for overhaul of workplace instruments to help address underpayments
An industry association representing the majority of Australia's public universities is blaming complex workplace instruments for the payroll errors reported by a number of the country's universities.
The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA) said the "sheer complexity" of the sector's awards and enterprise agreements is the root cause of payroll errors.
"Universities don't want to see anyone underpaid. But when agreements run to hundreds of pages, layered over antiquated awards and inconsistent legislation, it's little wonder errors occur," said Craig Laughton, executive director of the AHEIA, in a statement.
"These mistakes, whether underpayments or overpayments, are a symptom of a broken system."
Various universities across Australia have been self-reporting to the Fair Work Ombudsman for underpayments over the past few years, citing failures to comply with enterprise agreements.
Data from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) last year estimated that wage theft from Australian universities would exceed $382 million.
Laughton cited as an example the cases between the NTEU and Monash University, as well as between the FWO and Torrens University, where he said even the courts struggled to interpret ambiguous provisions.
According to the association, these examples show that the system itself is broken, and errors will persist no matter how good governance arrangements and compliance frameworks are.
Addressing underpayment cases
To address the problem, the AHEIA called for an overhaul of workplace instruments and simplification of rules to create a fair and transparent framework that minimises errors and protects staff entitlements.
"Governance and reporting frameworks cannot fix archaic rules that even judges find difficult to interpret," Laughton said.
"The only real solution is to modernise awards and simplify enterprise agreements, so they become wage integrity enablers rather than inhibitors."
The Federal Government said it is forming a new Expert Council on University Governance to address the rising cases of underpayments across the country's tertiary sector.
