‘Not good enough’: UNSW slapped with $200k penalty for payroll failures

UNSW has racked up over $200,000 in penalties and $13 million in reparations for failing to keep adequate payroll records for their casual staff, leading to systemic underpayment.

On 24 December, the University of NSW (UNSW) was ordered to pay $211,200 in penalties for contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009, including failures in their payroll processes, which resulted in systemic underpayment of their casual staff.

In 2018, a UNSW casual academic tipped off the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) that the university did not keep records of all hours worked by employees. Subsequent investigations revealed “systemic, longstanding and long-lasting” payroll management failures and staff underpayment issues.

Following these revelations, UNSW paid $12,263,611 to employees affected by the systemic underpayments. A further $1,353,314 was found to be owed to former employees who could not be contacted.

In its December ruling, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia penalised the university for six contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009, including failing to make and keep records of hours worked, failing to make records of casual loading and of staff remuneration rates, and failing to include prescribed information on staff payslips.

The court commented that the penalties were necessary for deterrence, given that keeping time sheets for employees was an “elementary task”. It added that UNSW’s conduct was “not good enough and [would] not be tolerated”.

From 2017 to 2022, the court found that UNSW paid 36 of its casual academics lump sum amounts recorded as “academic miscellaneous payments” (AMPs), payments for the work performed relating to lectures, marking, consultation, meetings and coordination duties.

Some of these duties were supposed to entail a higher hourly rate. In 2020, UNSW conceded that some marking undertaken outside of class and attendance of meetings had been treated as part of the tutorial rate rather than paid separately at a casual marking rate.

Furthermore, scheduled tutorial hours were not consistently updated to reflect the delivery of additional or fewer tutorials. The court found that UNSW had no system to properly record the duties or hours actually worked by its casual staff, with respect to AMP duties.

“UNSW had no system in place that recorded contemporaneously or otherwise, the duties or hours actually worked by the casual academics in respect of AMP duties, including any of the academic agreement duties, nor the rate of remuneration paid,” court documents said.

It also failed to make and keep records of casual loading, remuneration for miscellaneous academic duties, and to include prescribed information on payslips. The court said this made it difficult for employees to determine whether they were being paid correctly.

Staff were also required to attend compulsory meetings, but UNSW had no system in place to record the hours actually worked by employees with respect to these meetings, the court found.

It is estimated that, between 2017 and 2019, sixty UNSW employees had been required to attend 515 hours of meetings with no system in place to record those hours worked.

The court noted that despite extensive meetings with the FWO, UNSW did not admit to its record-keeping or payslip failures until the FWO commenced legal proceedings in September 2023.

It described the $200,000 penalty as a “significant penalty overall, reflecting the seriousness of the contraventions and UNSW’s conduct. However, it is no more than is required to achieve deterrence.”