University Underpayments: $210M+ in Back-Pay Under FWO Enforceable Undertakings

Since August 2022, thirteen Australian universities have signed enforceable undertakings with the Fair Work Ombudsman, together committing to more than $210 million in back-payments to academic and professional staff. An enforceable undertaking is a negotiated agreement in which the employer commits to back-pay affected staff and fix its systems; it is an alternative to court action, and is not a penalty. From the FWO enforceable undertakings register, largest first:

• University of Melbourne — $72M to over 25,000 staff (December 2024) — FWO media release
• University of NSW — over $32M to more than 33,000 staff (2026) — FWO media release
• University of Sydney — over $23M to more than 14,000 staff (December 2024) — FWO media release
• University of Tasmania — over $21.4M including superannuation, to more than 10,000 staff (December 2025) — FWO media release
• Monash University — over $20.7M including superannuation, to 10,877 staff (December 2025) — FWO media release
• La Trobe University — over $10.77M to more than 6,700 staff (March 2025) — FWO media release
• Griffith University — over $8.34M including superannuation, to 5,457 staff (June 2025) — FWO media release
• University of Wollongong — over $6.6M to 5,340 staff (September 2025) — FWO media release
• University of Newcastle — approximately $6.2M including superannuation and interest (August 2022) — FWO media release
• University of Technology Sydney — more than $4.4M including superannuation and interest (May 2023) — FWO media release
• Charles Darwin University — over $4M to more than 800 staff (June 2026) — FWO media release
• Charles Sturt University — approximately $3.2M in wages, superannuation and interest (August 2022) — FWO media release
• Queensland University of Technology — over $1.9M (November 2025) — FWO media release

With this many institutions on the register, it's worth every university employee knowing where pay errors in the sector tend to come from.

University pay is complicated, and errors tend to cluster around four patterns.

1. Casual academic time not counted. Casual academics are often paid by activity — a lecture, a tutorial, a marked assignment — rather than by the actual hour of work the activity takes. Enterprise agreements use "deemed hours" to translate one activity into a payable amount. If activities are paid at the wrong rate, or work such as marking and consultation isn't recorded, casuals can end up working hours they're never paid for.

2. Casual conversion. Long-term casuals may be entitled to move to permanent employment under the Fair Work Act and the relevant enterprise agreement. Missing that step can mean missing out on the leave and notice entitlements that come with permanent employment.

3. Misclassification. Professional staff classified below the level their actual duties warranted, sitting on a lower pay band than the enterprise agreement requires. Every additional grade missed compounds over the years of service.

4. Penalty rate and overtime failures. Work performed outside ordinary hours that should have attracted penalty rates or overtime instead paid at the base hourly rate. For administrative and professional staff who often work evenings or weekends in research or admin functions, these gaps add up across the workforce.

Universities are large, decentralised employers with complex enterprise agreements, many distinct role classifications, and payroll systems that have often been through several platform changes. Three structural reasons make errors more likely.

Payroll automation that doesn't reflect the EA. Modern HR platforms can interpret modern awards out of the box. They struggle with the bespoke enterprise agreements universities operate under — the EA might say "Level B Step 4 with a Level C loading for thesis supervision" and the payroll system simply has no field for that.

Manual processes that age out of compliance. When a new EA is signed every three years, the payroll team's job is to update every formula and every step rate. If anything is missed, every pay run from that point forward is wrong — and it compounds silently for thousands of staff for years.

Casuals fall through the gaps. Permanent staff are paid in a tightly-controlled monthly cycle. Casuals are paid against activity records submitted by faculties, often manually approved, often late. The further the casual is from the central payroll team, the more likely the rate, the multiplier, or the activity classification is wrong.

If you work at an Australian university — academic, professional, or casual — it's worth checking your pay line by line. Five checks worth doing:

• Your classification level. Find your enterprise agreement (usually on your university's HR portal), find the classification descriptors, and compare to the actual duties you perform. If your duties match a higher classification, you may be on the wrong rate.
• Casual hours vs activity hours. If you're a casual academic, look at your weekly hours of preparation, teaching, marking and consultation — then look at what you were paid for. If the gap is meaningful, your "deemed hours" multipliers may be undercounting.
• Casual conversion eligibility. If you've been employed as a casual for at least 6 months (12 months for a small business employer) and believe you no longer meet the definition of a casual employee, you can notify your employer that you want to change to permanent employment. Use the casual conversion checker to see where you stand.
• Penalty rates and overtime. Any work outside your ordinary hours band — evening, weekend, public holiday — should attract penalty or overtime. Check your enterprise agreement's hours clauses against your timesheet history.
• Super continuity. If you've moved between casual and permanent multiple times, check your super statements for gaps. Super on casual hours should have been paid each pay cycle.

If anything looks wrong, the underpayment claim builder walks through the steps to raise it formally — first internally with the university's HR team, then with the Fair Work Ombudsman if internal escalation doesn't resolve it. The back-pay calculator will help you quantify what's owed if you're owed something.

The FWO has publicly identified higher education as a compliance priority. Since 1 January 2025, intentional underpayment has also been a criminal offence in Australia, which raises the stakes for any employer that knowingly underpays.

For workers, that increases the importance of raising issues early — both internally and, if necessary, externally. For universities, it raises the stakes on systematic compliance audits and on the maturity of the payroll software and HR processes underpinning every pay run.