University of Wollongong forced to pay $66m after underpaying staff
The University of Wollongong will pay more than $ 6.6 million to thousands of low -paid personnel.
The university, after marking the problems of the personnel’s salaries in 2023, the fair work reported to the ombudsman.
Ombudsman found that approximately 5,340 personnel were low -paid, and the majority of them are ordinary professional services personnel in various non -teaching roles.
Low payments spread between 2014-2024.
However, some full -time and part -time employees are low -paid, including academic and support personnel.
Adil Working Ombudsman said in a statement, “Personnel roles changed from management officers to IT civil servants and librarians to researchers,” he said.
The majority of inadequate personnel were on the main campus of the university in Wollongong, south of Sydney.
“Most of the low payments were the result of the university’s inability to pay to daily professional personnel for at least three hours of minimum participation per shift and reduce the penalty rates they were entitled to work for shift work,” he said.
He also added that the employees are also the weekend penalty rates, public holiday fees, overtime rates, permission rights, surplus, severance pay and retirement.
$ 6.6 million consists of more than $ 4.9 million of low paid wages and rights, more than $ 1.1 million in interest and more than $ 630,000.
Payments made to each individual will vary more than $ 20,000, including pension and interest.
Fair Operation Ombudsman Anna Booth, an applicable initiative (EU), said that the university cooperated with FWO’s investigation and is determined to correct the problems of incompatibility.
“The University of Wollongong deserves to make important time and resources to make both the fully improvement of the influence and to improve conformity of the future, and to make important time and resources to improve the appropriateness of the influence.
“The issue serves as a warning for a long -standing problems that may arise from the lack of appropriate controls and balances to ensure the compatibility of the workplace. We expect universities to meet their legal obligations within their own business agreements and underlying awards.”
Ms. Booth said that the EU commitments will help to “direct cultural change ve and a wider university sector at Wollongong University.
Within the scope of the EU, the Ombudsman said that the institution has committed a series of measures to implement a number of unpaid low payments, to improve plus interest and to ensure future compliance.
Newswire contacted the Union for a comment.
