At Senate Estimates last week Rachel Volzke from the Fair Work Ombudsman mentioned the way universities manage paying casual academics; “across the university sector, there did seem to be a culture of divesting responsibility for payments, recording of hours et cetera without central regulation and oversight of payment methods as well,” HERE 

Work University of Sydney has done on its systems rather makes her general point.

Last year the university announced workshops and surveys, “to get a clearer understanding of current practices and procedures for the engagement, work allocation, supervision and payment of casual academics staff.”

Provost AnnaMarie Jagose explained the need thus (CMM October 18 2022),

“the individual teaching approach of each faculty, school or discipline, and the devolved nature of work classification and allocation across the university means, however, that local practises have varied historically. Different interpretations have been taken to the application of the Enterprise Agreement, potentially resulting in inconsistency in local guidance, timesheet completion or payment errors.”

What the uni did

The university tells CMM that there was “feedback” from over 70 school and faculty/workshops, and “we’re making improvements to our processes for allocating and documenting casual academic work and for reconciling timesheets.”

And what it wants to happen

“We want to free academic staff from some of the administrative responsibilities and give them more time to focus on teaching and research – by clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of academic and professional staff in engagement and payment matters, and providing more administrative support,” a Uni Sydney spokesperson said yesterday.

The new approach will be piloted in the arts and science faculties from March.

And there’s more!

The university is developing guidelines “to support consistent practice around the engagement and remuneration of casual academic staff across the university, in accordance with the Enterprise Agreement.”

“If any practices are subsequently identified that have resulted in payment errors to casual academic staff, they will be addressed and remediation payments made.”

Good-o, except

The (now expired) but still in place Enterprise Agreement was adopted in 2018 – which rather suggests all the work now underway should have been done before now, probably long before then.