A Queensland university has signed an agreement pledging to repay thousands of underpaid staff more than $8 million.
Griffith University underpaid 5457 full-time, part-time and casual staff working from all its six campuses, dating back to 2015. Academics, fitness employees and support staff were impacted.
Individual underpayments ranged from less than $1 to more than $92,400, including superannuation and interest.
The university will now repay more than $8.34 million in payments after it signed an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The government watchdog found academics were not paid properly for activities such as tutorials and subject coordination rates.
Fitness staff were not paid split shift or meal allowances and progression between pay bands had been incorrectly paid.
Poor training and data collection, a lack of automation, payroll system faults and slack payroll and data review processes were blamed for the underpayments.
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Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said Griffith University had self-reported the breaches and co-operated with the ombudsman’s investigation.
“The matter serves as a warning of the significant long-running problems that can result from an employer failing to have appropriate checks and balances to ensure workplace compliance,” she said.
Griffith is the sixth university to sign an agreement to repay staff who were underpaid.
“We expect universities to meet their legal obligations under their own enterprise agreements and underlying awards,” Booth said.
