“Ethical” University Caught Underpaying Me (Win!)

I received an email recently from a university I work at saying that they’ve been reviewed by an “external auditor” over the last few months to check for “employee entitlement compliance”. Basically, to check that the university have been paying their workers correctly. Well, it turns out, they haven’t. I already knew that of course. There’s been a number of occasions that I’ve probably mentioned in other videos where the university either underpaid me, or garnished my salary. Of course, I don’t like to go down without a fight, but often the fight is over a very trivial amount, say $46 or whatever. The amount of time it takes me to file the complaint, plus fill in all the paperwork, plus potentially have to attend meetings, or even tribunals over the issue, it’s often not worth it. Not to mention the university have lawyers on the payroll who are happy to slow roll the proceedings.

I know people who have gone through this process, not because of the money, but on principle, and it didn’t end up too well for them. Sure, they got their money that they were owed, their $94 or whatever, but because they were a contract worker, just like myself, suddenly their contract wasn’t renewed anymore. And that’s how these big companies and universities roll. Sure, it’s not legal to dismiss people over filing a complaint, but the majority of their workers now are casuals who are on three-month, or perhaps six-month contracts. You make a complaint, or piss the university off in some way, it’s very easy for them to not renew your contract in the future, and it’s very hard to prove, perhaps even impossible. They can just claim that your role is no longer required, or they’re having financial difficulties, or any other plethora of excuses. They’ve got no legal obligation to renew contracts. That’s why they have so many workers on these contracts. It makes it very easy for them to essentially dismiss a whole bunch of people without facing any legal consequence.

Just a note, I’m kind of under a gag order here, so I can’t tell you too many details, but let’s just say that the external auditors found that the university owe me a significant amount of money that they will be paying me next month. Not only will they pay back the money they owe, they will also be paying interest on that amount (which they titled, “voluntary interest”, as if they’re doing it out of the kindness of their heart), and they’ll also be back paying my superannuation. I can’t tell you the exact amount (because of the confidentiality agreement), but let’s just say the payment will allow me to take a few weeks off comfortably.

But one thing the university never did, which I guess won’t surprise you, they never apologised. They never said sorry. They never admitted they made a mistake. The sort of language they used in the official communication was along the lines of, “It’s come to our attention that…”, or, “In the process of analysing our payment records…”, or, “A discrepancy was found between our internal systems and the amount transferred to your bank account”. Basically, they’ve been caught out and don’t want to admit their mistake. I guess their legal team is behind all that.

It’s funny, these universities call themselves ethical and the epicentre of social justice. For example, this university has recently implemented Cultural and Ceremonial Leave, not for all employees, just for those who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. They also recently implemented Gender Affirmation Leave, but again, only for employees who identify as transgender. Perhaps we all need to start identifying as Transgender Aboriginals to teach these universities a lesson.

The university call their policies “inclusive” and “ethical”, but in reality, I think common sense would dictate that their policies are actually “exclusive” and “discriminatory”. I can only assume that future generations will look back at this era with contempt. Giving only people of certain ethnicities more privileges than those of other ethnicities, and then claiming that’s ethical? Obviously, it’s completely unethical, but these universities are blinded by their relentless and single-minded pursuit of achieving their fictional version of social justice.

Anyway, as I said, they call themselves ethical, but yet are happy to underpay their staff. And even when they get caught out, they don’t say sorry, they just call it a “discrepancy”. The good thing is, karma has come back to bite them a little bit and I’m finally getting a bit of social justice myself in the form of a cash windfall.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn