Why does this keep happening, in universities in particular? Surely by now they've all run audits and fixed it, after figuring out that it's a sector-wide deficiency? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-15/flinders-university-admits-to-underpayment-of-casual-staff/107265044
Oct 15, 2026, 12:39 AM@NewtonMark IMHO, above a certain size of organisation, failure to pay people properly should be statutory wage theft.
That is, large organisations should be deemed to have implemented wage structures deliberately, and if they get it wrong they are deemed to have done so deliberately. "Big enough and ugly enough to know what they were doing". Not an error, not a mistake, not an oversight.
It should not be possible to escape without meaningful penalties applied to the organisation and (very important!) those in charge of it.
@NewtonMark "Every other University has been found out but we're just built different..."
@benno @NewtonMark one reason (and not in any way an excuse) is there are no good systems or platforms for managing casual academic contracting. Most universities use Oracle or Workday, which can handle regular roles, or irregular casual roles, but struggle with casual academic roles that fit somewhere in between - variable number, activety-based rates, partially calendar-based and partially not (tutorials vs marking etc.)
Considering the size of the sector though, it's ludicrous.
@philbetts @benno Then they shouldn't do that. They're big enough to have the capability to produce systems which handle their business requirements lawfully.
@NewtonMark @benno couldn't agree more.
An executive dashboard that just has two sliders:
Employee count vs Executive remuneration
Wage theft vs Executive remuneration
Oct 15, 2026, 12:54 AM@NewtonMark I said to Alli this morning, regarding this: the punishment (and there needs to be punishment, even for self-reported acts) needs to be backpay with significant interest to every short-changed employee and fines either of the amount not paid or a significant percentage of organisational *income* for the period during which the offence took place such that it *hurts*.
@trib @NewtonMark yes. Add to that, they need to take responsibility for finding people and making sure they receive the backpay, rather than putting the effort onto the employees or unions. And prove they did.
Because workers, and particularly casuals, move house, they go home to other countries, change bank accounts etc, and don't necessarily follow news of their former employer or stay in touch with their union. Particularly if they used a work email address as a contact.