'Starvation wages': No job security for most Victorian university staff
By Madeleine Heffernan
May 1, 2019 — 11.45pm
When Shan Windscript started teaching history at Melbourne University five years ago, she didn't imagine she would be paid "starvation wages".
Ms Windscript, a PhD student, said she cleared just over $300 a week for about 20 hours' work at the prestigious university.
"I have to support myself living on starvation wages," she said.
"I have to work seven days a week just to simply earn a living wage and that ultimately and inevitably affects my PhD research. So I feel that if I keep doing this I'm trapped in this casual teaching, tutoring trap."
PhD student Shan Windscript who is casually employed by Melbourne University. Credit:Joe Armao
Sixty-three per cent of workers at Victoria's eight biggest universities are casual or on fixed-term contracts, new figures show.
Women account for 57 per cent of these casual and fixed-term workers. Casuals do not receive holiday or sick leave and are unpaid during the midyear and summer breaks.
Between them, Melbourne, Monash, Swinburne, RMIT, Deakin, Victoria, La Trobe and Federation universities employed almost 72,000 people last year, according to their annual reports. Just over 49,000 of these workers were casual or on fixed-term contracts.
These include lecturers and tutors who teach students, set exams and mark assignments, as well as administration staff.
Melbourne and Monash universities were far and away the biggest employers, and both had the highest proportion of casual and fixed-term workers, at more than 72 per cent.
By contrast, at Federation University of Australia casual and fixed-term workers accounted for just 32 per cent of its 1520-strong workforce.
This is the first time the Victorian government has asked universities to provide detailed data on the make-up of their workforce.
The ACTU, the National Tertiary Education Union and Labor senator Louise Pratt seized on the figures, saying "insecure" work contributed to depressed wage growth and created "second-class workers".
They said poor working conditions and lack of job security contributed to poor morale among universities' casual staff, which had a flow-on effect on students.
Senator Pratt reiterated her party's promise to give casual workers an easier pathway to permanency if Labor is elected this month.
"What you see at universities is people coming back to the same job, year after year, doing the same job, but not being treated as permanent. That's the situation we want to see addressed," she said.
Universities have previously insisted they pay staff for all the hours they work and noted pay rates are set out in workplace agreements approved by the union.
The body representing universities, Universities Australia, declined to comment. Melbourne and Monash universities did not respond to requests for comment before deadline.
Australian Council of Trade Unions
Madeleine Heffernan
Madeleine Heffernan edits The Age's Monday education page
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