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A Queensland university has shortchanged current and former employees by almost $1.3 million, blaming widespread issues in its payment systems.
The Fair Work Ombudsman identified 1038 staff members who were shortchanged by CQ University, including academic and professional staff, vocational education and training educators, and student residential advisers.
Errors were found in base salary rates, overtime, minimum shift times for casual employees, promotion and progression entitlements for academic staff, and leave entitlements and loading, including for public holidays.
The largest amount missing from any one employee’s pay cheque was $63,350, excluding interest and superannuation.
CQU blamed an incorrect configuration of its payroll system, alongside staff errors, turnovers, and an over-reliance on manual processes.
While the university had campuses across Queensland and Australia – including Rockhampton, Brisbane, Townsville, and Sydney – most underpaid staff were located at its Rockhampton North campus, a Fair Work Ombudsman spokesperson told this masthead.
National Tertiary Education Union Queensland branch secretary Michael McNally said the errors leading to the underpayments were “completely foreseeable”.
“The university had every opportunity – from members, as individuals in the union, raising issues about payments to casual staff – to actually invest in the systems that they needed to to pay these people properly,” he said.
“It certainly looks like they’re putting some effort in now ... but they should have been doing that from the start.”
McNally said many universities would fix underpayments on a case-by-case basis, but said in most instances, it was evidence of a systemic problem.
“We have counted up the underpayments [since 2020], and in Queensland, it’s running at $29.4 million, with about 26,000 staff affected,” he said.
The university was ordered to pay $30,000 to the Fair Work Ombudsman as an initial fine.
This would be followed by a second fine determined by the number of additional underpayments identified by the office of the Ombudsman, up to a maximum penalty of $100,000.
By May this year, CQU had repaid 875 current and former staff and owed the remaining 163 just over $96,000.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Nick Klomp said the university was committed to repaying every current and former staff member who was underpaid.
“Whilst all underpayments were unintentional, CQ University takes full responsibility,” he said.
He pointed to the fact the university had begun repaying staff and reported itself to the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2023, after it “proactively commenced a comprehensive wage integrity review”.
“Since then, we have established a dedicated wage integrity project team to rectify underpayments and strengthen our systems, processes, and staff awareness to prevent this from happening in the future,” Klomp said.
The vice-chancellor said an agreement with the Ombudsman would also ensure the university met commitments to independently audit, issue transparent reporting, and continue to improve compliance.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said the university deserved credit for engaging with her office.
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