ANU owes $2 million to over 2000 staff after decade of unpaid wages

By Fergus Wall. 

ANU has admitted 2,290 current and former casual staff were underpaid an estimated $2 million dollars over 11 years.

The decade-long underpayments arose due to errors in online timesheets and were detected “via a single potential instance impacting one casual staff member”, the university told Observer.

The $2 million figure is calculated at 2024 rates and does not include superannuation or interest. The mean missed payment for each affected employee is $870.  A university statement estimates the median to be $600.

In the statement, ANU promised to repay all missed wages and superannuation, with interest, over the course of ten to twelve weeks. According to the ANU Reporter, the university has already paid $261,000 to 220 staff for payments missed during the 2023/2024 financial year.

While investigating the missed payments, the university identified there may be further issues for 130 staff engaged in emergency and on-call duties who may not have been paid the correct overtime or allowance.

ANU declined to comment on whether the university is subject to any Fair Work notice or enforceable undertaking in relation to the underpayments.

“Disappointing but not surprising” says NTEU

“The recent announcements of wage theft at the ANU are disappointing but not surprising”, says Millan Pintos-Lopez, ANU Branch President of the National Tertiary Education Union.

In a statement, the NTEU calculated that university staff had suffered “more than $205 million in confirmed wage theft in recent years”, with the figure “on track to exceed $384 million” with the pending release of annual reports.

It’s the “most vulnerable workers” who “continue to bear the brunt of wage theft”, Pintos-Lopez says.

“The bare minimum in terms of respect is paying workers for what they do. These workers go above and beyond for this institution and the ANU couldn’t even pay them properly for it.”

Insecure work the “underlying disease”

“These underpayments were only possible due to the casualised nature of the work”, according to Dr Lachlan Clohesy, secretary of the ACT Division of the NTEU.

Dr Clohesy attributed the underpayments, which only affected employees on casual contracts, to “the underlying disease” of insecure work.

ANU faced scrutiny in March after hiring casual employees to replace two lecturers with a combined 60 years of teaching at ANU’s School of Music. Cellist David Pereira and violinist-viola player Tor Fromhyr had taught at ANU since 1991 and 1997, respectively, before the University chose not to renew their 12-month contracts. Their replacements are on casual contracts.

“We know that when workers are employed insecurely, they are less likely to report workplace issues, which is why this can go undetected for so long” said Dr Clohesy.

ANU “deeply sorry”

In a statement to ANU Reporter, Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell apologised for the underpayments.

“ANU apologises to all staff affected by this error and any hardship, challenges and stress this may have caused”.

Distinguished Professor Bell stated ANU is “taking immediate and comprehensive action to remedy this situation and to ensure it does not happen again”.

In a statement to Observer, an ANU spokesperson said the university “promptly investigated” the issue, including a “widened investigation covering 11 years – […] the whole time period online timesheets for casuals have been used at ANU”.

The Vice-Chancellor stated the University has self-reported the issue to the Fair Work Ombudsman, notified all affected staff and is “working to remediate all missed payments as soon as possible”.

The University has also engaged KPMG “to assist with the investigation and to ensure remediation of any outstanding allowances occurs as quickly as possible”. ANU did not respond to Observer’s request for the price of these contracted services.

“While this error has occurred in the past, we are confident that we have taken the necessary corrective measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” said the Vice-Chancellor. “ANU is committed to recognising and compensating all staff for their hard work and vital contributions to our University and its operations”.

Calls for federal intervention

The NTEU’s Dr Clohesy is advocating the referral of the issue to the federal government’s Universities Accord process, including the soon-to-be established Australian Tertiary Education Commission. The government allocated funding to the fledgling commission in the recent budget, in accordance with Recommendation 30 of the Accord Report.

“It is time the federal government intervened through the Australian Universities Accord process, as universities have proven themselves unable or unwilling to stamp out wage theft.”

The university has already voluntarily referred the matter to the federal Fair Work Ombudsman.

Help is available

If you require further information or support about underpayments, resources are available:

• The Fair Work Ombudsman is a government agency and can provide free and confidential assistance for employment matters to all Australian employees.
• The ANUSA Legal Service can provide free legal advice to all ANU students, including undergraduate and postgraduate students.
• Observer has a handy guide on checking you are paid correctly, including signs to look for and possible courses of action.
• ANU has provided a website for those affected by these underpayments.

Graphics by Will Novak

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