◆ WAGE THEFT lightwise/123rf
Wage theft is core university business The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the destructive consequences of an over reliance on casual labour across the economy. One of the clearest examples of this over-reliance is in universities. For the last two decades, as federal funding has stagnated, universities have leaned into international student fees on the revenue side, and casual workers on the expense side. This devolved the risks of the international student fee market to insecurely employed staff with few entitlements or employment rights.
This is a devastating consequence of the central business model of universities intersecting with the Federal Government’s ideological aversion to universities accessing JobKeeper.
Since the pandemic hit and international student fee income dried up, thousands of casual university staff have lost their jobs.
University managers have shown a keenness to deny the extent of casualisation within the sector. They typically point to figures showing that on a full time equivalent (FTE) basis casuals comprise
Damien Cahill Assistant Secretary, NSW Division
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ADVOCATE VOL. 27 NO. 3 ◆ NOV 2020
Uncovering the true extent of casualisation