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Griffith University has agreed to reimburse almost 5,500 former and current staff $8.34 million in wages and superannuation following an investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman into wage underpayments over five years between 2015 and 2024.
The Queensland-based public university has entered into an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsmen after Griffith University self-reported the breaches in 2022.
The $8.34 million that Griffith has agreed to reimburse staff includes interest, while the university has also agreed to a contrition payment of $175,000 and the implementation of measures to ensure ongoing compliance with workplace laws.
The affected employees worked across all four of Griffith University’s schools and all six campuses, including the university’s virtual campus.
Affected staff were engaged full-time, part-time and casually as academic, professional, support and fitness staff, and proctors. Individual underpayments ranged from less than $1 to more than $92,400, including superannuation and interest.
In total, Griffith University underpaid 5,457 current and former employees more than $5.95 million in wages and $830,000 in superannuation. The university has agreed to pay an additional $1.55 million in interest to the employees as part of the remediation measures.
To date, the university has repaid $5.83 million, excluding superannuation and interest, to 5,226 employees.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth says an enforceable undertaking is appropriate as the university cooperated with the investigation and “demonstrated a strong commitment to rectifying its non-compliance issues”.
“Griffith University deserves credit for acknowledging its breaches and the underlying issues and committing significant time and resources to put in place corrective measures that will ensure both full remediation of impacted staff and improved compliance for the future,” says Booth.
“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.
“We expect universities to meet their legal obligations under their own enterprise agreements and underlying awards.”
The underpayments, which were discovered in the university’s enterprise agreements and in two awards, are found to have been caused by a combination of insufficient training among course convenors and school administrators, insufficient data collection in onboarding processes, and insufficient or non-existent payroll and data review processes.
The investigation found a lack of automation allowed for human error, while deficiencies in various payroll systems also contributed to the breaches.
Griffith University failed to pay correct rates for initial and repeat tutorials and other academic activities as well as PhD qualification rates, subject coordination rates, initial session rates, proctor rates and research assistant rates.
It also did not correctly pay employees for minimum daily engagement periods, and did not pay fitness employees split shift and meal allowances. Progressions between pay bands were also incorrectly paid.
Booth says the commitments secured from Griffith University, including a consultative body for improved collaboration between university management, employees and their union, will help to drive cultural change across the university, and were an example for the wider university sector.
“Improving universities’ workplace compliance is a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman,” says Booth.
“We look forward to working with the leadership teams at universities nationally to assist them to do the sustained, smart work required to ensure full compliance with workplace laws.”
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