Higher education awards and pay systems need fixing

A trifecta of issues is stifling employment in the higher education sector, according to the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA).

The Executive Director of AHEIA, Craig Laughton, said each of the issues is federal government generated and the result good intentions gone wrong.

“First, the push to end casualisation of a small part of the university workforce that was claimed to provide ‘secure employment’ has in fact led to fewer jobs and disenfranchised people who like the flexibility of casual work,” Mr Laughton said.

“Secondly, the clamp on the use of fix-term contracts, which usually have been applied to research, also is faltering so far as job creation is concerned.

“Thirdly, anachronistic provisions for redundancy in many university enterprise agreements provide a reason not to employ people permanently.

“For example, why should an employee of just six months be eligible for more than 50 weeks of redundancy? “

Mr Laughton said for its part the federal government started with the best of intentions, but the impact of its decisions has been perverse.

An additional, overarching issue is the complexity of higher education pay structures.

“Complex pay structures put staff and employers at risk of payroll errors,” Mr Laughton said.

“An employee may be subject to multiple pay rates under one enterprise agreement.

“For instance, the work of a casual academic who performs lectures, tutorials, marking, and administrative duties spans nine different pay rates, each dependent on task type, repetition and whether they hold a PhD.

“This level of complexity is pregnant with payroll systems peril. Even with the robust systems that are in place, the risk of misclassification and incorrect payment is high. A single oversight can result in underpayment or overpayment.”

Mr Laughton said employers do the right thing, but the current system has engineered into it a recipe for error.  The system needs fixing.

“Simplifying pay structures and reducing the number of variable rates would not only improve compliance but also free up resources currently spent on manual checks and corrections. For universities and other institutions, reform is not just desirable—it’s essential,” he said.