Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has completed more than $1.9 million in payments, including interest and superannuation, to hundreds of staff it underpaid, as part of entering into an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
QUT has already paid the $1.9 million to 433 underpaid workers, and has agreed to undertake a Comprehensive External Review (CER) assessing more workers and rectify any further underpayments identified.
The university is also required to make a contrition payment of $250,000 and implement a broad range of measures to ensure compliance with workplace laws going forward.
The underpaid employees were located at the university's campuses in Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove in Brisbane. They worked across the university's five faculties.
Of the QUT staff identified as being underpaid to date, most were professional services staff in a variety of non-teaching positions, such as administration officers, research assistants and IT event staff. Most, 366, were full-time or part-time workers, with the others employed as casuals.
Most of the underpayments were the result of the university failing to pay overtime, time off in lieu of overtime, minimum rates for ordinary hours, meal allowances, casual loading, and the casual professional minimum engagement period payment under the relevant enterprise agreement.
The underpayments involved the university breaching its own enterprise agreements. Key causes of the widespread underpayments were the university's poor governance processes as well as fundamental payroll system errors.
The university first became aware of its underpayments in 2019. It first self-reported its subsequent compliance audits to the FWO in 2021.
The $1.9 million QUT has paid so far is made up of wages and entitlements exceeding $1.748 million, interest of more than $143,000, and superannuation (and interest on superannuation) of more than $24,000. Underpayments found occurred under the 2014, 2018 and 2022 Professional Staff enterprise agreements.
Payments to impacted individual employees range from less than $10 to more than $78,000, including superannuation and interest.
Under the EU, QUT has commissioned an external auditor to conduct the CER, which will review all entitlements that applied to casual, fixed-term and ongoing professional employees across the university, and sessional academic employees and educators in QUT College/International College, between the commencements (in 2019) of both the Professional and Academic 2018 Enterprise Agreements and the start date of the EU.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an EU was appropriate as the university had cooperated with the FWO's investigation and demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying its non-compliance.
"Queensland University of Technology deserves credit for acknowledging its breaches and the underlying issues, and committing significant time and resources to put in place corrective measures that will ensure both full remediation of impacted staff and improved compliance for the future," Ms Booth said.
"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 and underlying awards."
"The commitments secured under the EU will help drive cultural change across the university, including through QUT's education campaigns for all staff regarding entitlements under the enterprise agreements, and standing agenda items for various governance committees to discuss EU obligations.
"Improving universities' workplace compliance is a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman. Important progress has been made nationally, and we look forward to continuing to work with leadership teams at universities to assist them to do the sustained, smart work required to ensure employees benefit from full workplace laws compliance," Ms Booth said.
Under the EU, QUT has committed to a range of measures to ensure compliance, including:
- conducting the CER, in accordance with methodology approved by the FWO, to assess all casual, fixed-term and ongoing professional employees, casual academic employees, as well as ongoing and casual international college educators, employed under the 2018 and 2022 Professional and Academic Staff enterprise agreements, and back-pay any underpayments found;
- developing and implementing a new timesheet system, and periodically conducting proactive sample checks to validate payments made to employees against entitlements under the enterprise agreements;
- prioritising and embedding the monitoring of QUT's compliance with workplace laws within their governance obligations, including as a standing agenda item in the University's governing Council and relevant committee meetings;
- notifying employees of the EU and the CER through an email or by post
- promoting workplace relations compliance through ongoing consultation and communication to employees;
- establishing a complaints and review mechanism and dedicated employee hotline for all current and former employees;
- providing the FWO with evidence of all back-payments made, including superannuation and interest;
- providing the FWO with six-monthly progress updates on the CER and timesheet system implementation, as well as any other systems, processes or training that has been implemented to ensure compliance with workplace laws;
- providing the FWO with the outcomes of complaints or disputes raised through the new mechanism and employee hotline.
QUT's contrition payment of $250,000 will be paid to the not-for-profit Cleaning Accountability Framework, which helps ensure fair working conditions for cleaners.
Since announcing in 2022 that addressing systemic non-compliance in the university sector was a priority, the Fair Work Ombudsman has entered into a further eight Enforceable Undertakings with The University of Wollongong, La Trobe University, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Newcastle and Charles Sturt University and Griffith University; secured court penalties against the University of Melbourne; and commenced ongoing legal action against the University of NSW.
