University of Wollongong to repay $6.6m in staff underpayments

The University of Wollongong (UOW) will backpay more than $6.6 million to thousands of staff after admitting to a decade of payroll errors, in one of the largest self-reported underpayment cases in the Australian university sector.

The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) confirmed that 5,340 employees were impacted, most of them casual professional services staff in non-teaching roles such as administration, IT support, library services, and research assistance. Some full-time and part-time academic and support staff were also affected. The underpayments occurred between 2014 and 2024.

The main finding was that casual staff weren't always paid for the three-hour minimum they were legally entitled to work. Others missed out on proper penalty rates for weekends, public holidays, shift work, and overtime. Leave entitlements, redundancy, severance, and retirement payments were also incorrectly calculated.

The repayments include more than $4.9 million in wages and entitlements, $1.1 million in interest, and around $630,000 in superannuation. Individual payments range from less than $20 to over $36,000.

Vice-President (Operations) Stephen Phillips issued an apology on behalf of UOW, citing “poor governance processes” and payroll system errors. “We deeply regret the distress and inconvenience caused to our staff by these errors,” he said, adding that measures were being put in place to prevent future lapses.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said an enforceable undertaking had been accepted given the university’s cooperation. “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,” she noted.

The case is the latest in a string of underpayment revelations across the higher education sector. In recent years, several Australian universities have admitted to payroll breaches, sparking criticism of systemic issues in how institutions manage casual contracts and complex enterprise agreements. Booth added that the commitments made by UOW could “help drive cultural change” in a sector under growing scrutiny.