The underpaid employees performed work across each of the university’s Victorian campuses, including the Shepparton campus, as well as its Sydney site.
Those affected were employed as casual academics and professional staff.
According to the Fair Work Ombudsman, underpayments were due to systemic failures in compliance and central oversight, and ranged from $2 to $91,837, including superannuation and interest.
Thirty-five employees were underpaid more than $20,000, excluding superannuation and interest, the ombudsman’s office said.
Neither the ombudsman’s office nor La Trobe University could confirm how many employees at the Shepparton campus were affected by underpayments, or the amounts owed to local staff.
In a statement, La Trobe University said the underpayments were unintentional and were discovered in 2020 after an independent review initiated by the university.
La Trobe self-reported the breach to the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2021, according to the statement.
“We have fully compensated all affected current staff and continue to proactively seek some former casual staff who have not yet responded,” the statement said.
“The underpayments were unintentional, resulting from complex industrial agreements, inefficient and outdated systems and processes. La Trobe has since improved and simplified these systems and processes to prevent future errors.
“While unintentional, the university recognises that underpayment of its highly valued casual staff is unacceptable, and we again sincerely apologise to all affected individuals.”
According to the ombudsman, most underpayments were related to marking work.
Instead of paying staff for the hours they worked, the university often paid casual academics based on things like words-per-hour, or assessments-per-term.
Underpayments also occurred for casual staff lecturing, tutoring and doing subject co-ordination.
In total, La Trobe underpaid thousands of current and former employees more than $9.3 million for work performed between January 2015 and December 2022, according to the ombudsman’s office.
In addition to back-paying staff, the university also owes $909,422 in superannuation and $556,061 in interest.
More than $10.08 million has already been back-paid, according to the ombudsman’s office.
The university has signed a legally binding agreement with the ombudsman to rectify all outstanding underpayments, as well as implementing improvements to make sure the issues are not repeated in the future.
“The matter serves as a warning of the significant problems that can result from an employer failing to have appropriate checks and balances to ensure workplace relations compliance,” Fair Work Ombudsman’s Anna Booth said.
“Improving universities’ workplace compliance is a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman.”
The National Tertiary Education Union said the underpayments pointed to the need for a sector-wide governance reform among universities.
“Someone needs to throw open the windows of the university sector and let some fresh air and sunlight in, there is a governance crisis,” national NTEU secretary Alison Barnes said.
“We’ve been saying for years, universities are the only multibillion-dollar organisations in the country which have no real oversight, and finally people are starting to listen.”
Former La Trobe casual staff with queries about underpayments can access information via the university’s employee portal.
The portal can be found at latrobe.edu.au/staff/casual-pay-review
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