The University of Tasmania (UTAS) will complete more than $21.4 million in payments, including interest and superannuation, to over 10,000 underpaid staff as part of entering into an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
UTAS has already rectified the large majority of underpayments identified to date and the review into its non-compliance remains ongoing, with the University committed to rectifying any further underpayments identified.
Under the Enforceable Undertaking, UTAS must also make a contrition payment of $175,000 and implement a broad range of measures to ensure compliance with workplace laws going forward.
The underpayments occurred across 11 years. The majority of the underpaid employees were casual professional and academic staff in a variety of roles. The underpaid employees also included full-time and part-time employees.
The underpaid employees were located across UTAS's campuses in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Sydney along with a number of their smaller campus locations.
Most of the underpayments were the result of UTAS failing to pay casual professional staff for a minimum engagement period of at least three hours per shift, as required under its enterprise agreements.
Employees being underpaid the penalty rates they were entitled to for shift work was also a significant cause of underpayments.
UTAS also underpaid employees' hourly rates of pay, weekend penalty rates, public holiday pay, overtime rates, various leave entitlements, termination payments and various allowances. It also breached the Fair Work Act by failing to keep accurate records of time worked by casual employees.
Key causes of the widespread underpayments were the university's poor governance processes as well as fundamental payroll system deficiencies.
UTAS became aware of its underpayments when it conducted a self-initiated review, which was prompted by the Fair Work Ombudsman writing to all Australian universities in 2020 asking them to ensure they were compliant with workplace laws.
The university self-reported its non-compliance to the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2021.
The more than $21 million UTAS is currently back-paying relates to a total of 10,443 current and former employees it underpaid between March 2014 and July 2025.
It is made up of underpaid wages and entitlements exceeding $14.7 million, interest on top of this of more than $3.8 million, and superannuation (and interest on superannuation) of more than $2.8 million. The large majority has already been paid.
Back payments to impacted individual employees range from less than $6 to more than $280,000, including superannuation and interest.
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 issues.
"UTAS 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.
"Improving universities' workplace compliance is a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman. We've made important progress nationally, including through Enforceable Undertakings like this, and we look forward to continuing to work with the leadership teams at universities nationally to assist them to do the sustained, smart work required to ensure their employees benefit from full compliance with workplace laws."
Under the EU, UTAS has committed to rectifying all outstanding underpayments in full, plus interest, and implementing a range of measures to ensure future compliance, including:
- completing the secondary phase of its remediation program, reporting the results to the Fair Work Ombudsman and rectifying any underpayments identified;
- providing the FWO information about the systems and process improvements it is implementing to ensure future compliance;
- ensuring relevant staff complete additional training regarding their Fair Work obligations;
- commissioning, at its own cost, two compliance audits to check it is meeting all employee entitlements - and rectifying any underpayments found;
- informing staff of the EU through all-staff emails or written notice to affected employees;
- maintaining an employee payments complaint and review mechanism; and
- prioritising and embedding within its Audit and Risk Committee the monitoring of compliance with Fair Work instruments
UTAS's contrition payment will be paid to the Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Since announcing in 2022 that addressing systemic non-compliance in the university sector was a priority, the Fair Work Ombudsman has entered into Enforceable Undertakings with 10 other universities, being Monash University, La Trobe University, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Newcastle and Charles Sturt University, Griffith University, the University of Wollongong, and Queensland University of Technology.
The FWO has also secured court penalties against the University of Melbourne, and commenced ongoing legal action against the University of NSW.
