Tertiary casual concerns

Insecure workers miss out on sick, parental leave

MORE than half of workers in Victoria’s universities are employed in insecure or casual positions, prompting calls for an overview of the sector’s business model.

New data from university annual reports show that most workers do not have access to sick or parental leave and that their employment status hindered hopes of getting a home loan.

The research from the National Tertiary Education

Union comes after four of the state’s universities had to backpay millions of dollars to thousands of casual staff amid claims of wage theft.

The latest figures show that people aged 25 to 34, were over-represented in insecure work positions.

NTEU state assistant secretary Sarah Roberts described the university’s business model as broken.

“More than half of all Victorian university workers have no job security, no sick leave or parental leave and no ability to buy a home or plan for their future,” Ms Roberts said.

“Staff are continually employed on casual or shortterm contracts, forced to constantly reapply for their jobs and are often the victims of wage theft.”

At Swinburne, more than 61 per cent of all staff were employed on an insecure basis – the highest rate of the seven universities analysed.

In the past 12 months Monash, La Trobe, Melbourne and RMIT universities repaid more than $31m to thousands of mostly casual staff because of underpayments. La Trobe is still finalising the last of its payments.

Australian Higher Education Industrial Association executive director Stuart Andrews said casual employment in universities covered different groups and that many people preferred the flexibility of being a casual.

“Simply looking at the aggregate number of casual staff is therefore very misleading,’’ Mr Andrews said.

“These groups include large numbers of PhD students undertaking work in conjunction with their studies, undergraduate students being provided with work that helps them to cover the costs of completing their degrees.”

Calls for reform come as a new study by Frank Larkins from the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education revealed most Australian universities made more staff cuts than necessary to survive the pandemic.

Based on universities’ 2020 financial results, Professor Larkins found the casual workforce took the biggest hit with 50 per cent of expenses allocated to staff pay.

He said many universities used the pandemic to justify financial reform, but for some universities “staff losses were greater than warranted”.