campusreview . com . au
WORKFORCE
Overworked , underpaid
Report finds USyd owes casuals 753 hours of unpaid work .
By Wade Zaglas
A joint report prepared by casual lecturers at the University of Sydney has concluded that some university courses are only continuing because staff are not being paid their full hours .
In what the National Tertiary Education Union ( NTEU ) is now calling “ common practice ” across the sector , staff are working beyond their contracted hours and not being paid properly .
The report , which was conducted by both the USyd Casual Network and the NTEU , audited 19 casual academics , spanning seven schools and four faculties within the university .
The audit took place in the first six weeks of semester two this year and found that 84 per cent of surveyed staff performed unpaid work within that period , equating to 16 of the 19 casuals surveyed .
According to their employment contracts , the 19 surveyed casuals were supposed to work 1230 hours in total . However , the casuals worked 1983 hours over the period , resulting in “ 753 hours of unpaid work ,” the report stated . Many of the additional hours were attributed to “ unpaid administration work ” that mounted after the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in staff cuts .
The main types of administrative work cited in the report included scheduling classes , communicating with students and organising socially distanced rooms .
According to the report , one casual surveyed was not paid for more than two-thirds ( 69 per cent ) of their workload , which the authors stated was “ equivalent to someone in a 9-to-5 job not being paid for work performed after 11:30am ”.
In another case , administrative work ballooned to include “ creating the unit of study outline , populating the Canvas ( eLearning ) site , designing assessments , responding to student queries and attending student consultations ” for a class of 70 students .
The report found that if the surveyed casuals had been paid for their additional hours , each would have received , on average , $ 2521 over the six-week period : a total of $ 47,897 . The report also concluded that the highest amount owed to one casual employee was $ 11,469 .
Georgia Carr , a casual lecturer at the University of Sydney and one of the co-authors of the report , said such underpayment was “ rife ” across the country and not unique to USyd .
The report also highlighted that underpayments were made worse by the “ hybrid ” teaching model universities had to adopt during the pandemic , which mixed online learning with on-campus classes .
“ While it is important to offer this type of teaching , it carries an enormous administrative burden ,” Carr told Guardian Australia .
“ It is work that has to be done .
“ It is not optional , it is not people who go above and beyond , or standout teachers , it is just common practice that is required .
“ Forty-eight minutes is on average what people were given in a contract . Just nowhere near enough time is being given .”
Carr also highlighted that the increase in casualisation across the university sector was forcing many casuals to do unpaid work , fearing refusal would result in contracts not being renewed . The casual academic also stated that such employment practices were not solely brought about by the pandemic .
“ They can ’ t claim ignorance anymore – wage theft is really standard practice at Australian universities in general … it is an open secret ,” she concluded .
The NTEU ’ s president of the Sydney university branch , Kurt Iveson , added : “ Toxic management practices have allowed this to happen .”
The report concludes with five demands to the university , which include paying back all unpaid wages to all “ affected casualised staff , under the guidance of NTEU members in the USyd Casuals Network and the NTEU to determine the appropriate amount of compensation to be paid ”.
It also demands that the university must “ immediately alter casuals ’ schedules of payment to ensure that for the remainder of the life of the existing EA , casualised staff are not underpaid ”.
Other demands include a full-scale audit of all casuals ’ working hours at USyd , a commitment to ending wage theft in the next enterprise agreement , and more security for casual employees .
A spokeswoman for USyd said the university would “ take time ” to consider the report .
“ Beyond this report , we are not currently aware of any other data or evidence to suggest our academic staff are frequently working hours beyond what they are contracted to do ,” she said .
“ All academic workload allocations are governed by the enterprise agreement , and local areas develop their own workload allocation models within the EA framework .
“ These models are regularly reviewed by a committee composed of representatives of both the staff unions and representatives nominated by the University .” ■
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