Casual staff teaching in the University of Melbourne’s School of Computing and Information Science are being back-paid for work done

Last year the campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union questioned pay-rates dating back to June 2015 (CMM October 30). The tutorial rate casual staff were being paid included marking and student consultation. Problem was the university’s enterprise agreement has long specified a separate payment for marking.

Discussion, quite a lot of discussion, occurred, concluding with 50 plus past and present casual academics in the school successfully claiming for 2000 hours of underpayment. There are suggestions the amount they will collect is around $100 000.

It’s a tidy addition to the win for casual academics in Maths and Stats, where for some years, staff were paid a practice class rate instead of the higher one for tutorials. This was settled earlier in the year, with $500 000 thought to be owing for last year alone (CMM March 27).