The university management IR lobby says underpaying casual staff is not deliberate and its members are fixing it

Tbe 32-member Australian Higher Education Industrial Association has responded to allegations that universities are committing “wage theft,”  calling them “misleading and deliberately inflammatory.”

According to AHEIA’s Craig Laughton, cases of underpayment “are not part of a systemic nor deliberate approach by universities”  and universities have examined their records, “to address ant payment inaccuracies”.

It follows years of media coverage of underpayment at universities across the country, a continuing campaign by the National Tertiary Education Union, evidence to Senate and state parliamentary committees and numerous interventions by the Fair Work Ombudsman, notably two current Federal Court cases against  University of Melbourne.

Last week the National Tertiary Education Union added to its efforts, with widely reported claims universities have underpaid staff $83m in recent years. “It is heartbreaking our public universities are being run like greedy corporations with no respect for paying hard-working staff what they’re owed,” union president Alison Barnes said (CMM February 290).

However Mr Laughton, attributes “wage integrity issues” to, “the extremely complex nature of the enterprise arrangements in the sector coupled with the localised decision making that is common in universities around the world.”

AHEIA does not represent most of the Group of Eight universities, members of which have been particularly criticised over under-payments.