The University of Queensland has been underpaying its workers. This is what the National Tertiary Education Union has to say on the matter in its Media Release on 28 May 2024 :
University of Queensland staff suffer ‘staggering’ $8m wage theft
“The scale of the wage theft at UQ is staggering. Nearly 10,000 of UQ’s lowest-paid staff have lost on average around $800, during a cost-of-living crisis. The VC has apologised unreservedly, but that won’t compensate the casuals who couldn’t pay their bills. No mention is made of the impact of the continual reorganisation and cutting of support and admin staff, who support the university’s key operations. The inference is this all just ‘computer error.’ Federal and state governments must act on the failure of university governance failures and the consequent explosion in insecure work that has fostered the wage theft crisis in universities.” – NTEU Queensland Secretary Michael McNally said.
In reply, the Vice Chancellor said: “The University initiated this external review in October 2021 to ensure our employees were paid accurately and in accordance with UQ’s applicable Enterprise Agreement (EA) between January 2017 to December 2023 … In my communication to staff about this matter, I will unreservedly apologise for these errors and reaffirm the University’s commitment that affected staff will receive all pay due, including superannuation and interest … I want to assure you that the University is undertaking an extensive program of work to further strengthen our pay systems and processes and to ensure ongoing pay accuracy. This includes investment in our new time and attendance and payroll systems ...”
The truth is the University of Queensland has been underpaying workers at the University for over 50 years. During 1967-68 I was employed by Professor John Sprent as a laboratory cadet in the Department of Parasitology, University of Queensland, under Dr Colin Dobson which was in the faculty of veterinary science. My job included the collection of bodily fluids from animals and performing tests to analyse proteins that I extracted from those fluids using state of the art (at that time) techniques such as electrophoresis and column chromatography. Much of the work was done in a cold room. I was also responsible for some care of a variety of animals including guinea pigs, rabbits and snakes.
I am sad to say that, at the age of 17, I was required to participate in practices which are now regarded as being unethical. I conducted hundreds of immune response experiments on animals (whilst ) … some animals died, not because of the protein I injected into their skin but because of the way I administered the anaesthetic when I took blood directly from guinea pigs’ hearts. I received minimal on the job training.
Dobson was studying the nature of protective immunity against gastrointestinal nematodes, genetic control of immunity and immunosuppression. Later he looked at practical control of metazoan parasites by vaccination. For my part in this work, I was paid a princely sum of $28 per week which was later revised upwards to about $32 per week.
The average earnings for a week’s work in 1965-66 was $57 and minimum wages for women were set around 30 per cent lower than for men.
I saved the money I earned and paid for my fees to do first year medicine in 1969. In the evenings, I studied zoology. You might ask why I put up with this, particularly as I was a member of the union, Technical and Laboratory Staff Association (TALSA). Many of the laboratory workers were women.
I later heard that Colin Dobson stood up for his staff. Even by the standards in those days, which were pretty bad, he was a sexist. However, he had the respect of the people who worked for him. I was no exception, but I was very young, and this was my first full-time job. I have come to understand that it was the system that was at fault. In a hierarchical academic system, laboratory staff were the bottom of the pile even though we did the bulk of the work. Professors were treated like gods even though they were often hopeless administrators.
Is it any better now? Even though there is an ethical practices unit at Queensland University these days, the governing body, the Senate, is part of a sick corporate culture that accepts money from weapons dealers, arms manufacturers complicit in genocide. There is a Chemical Engineering building, UQ Dow Centre, dedicated to Andrew Liveris who made his money as former CEO and chairman of the Dow Chemical Company that manufactured napalm used against the people during the American war in Vietnam.
Having made a fortune out of human misery, Liveris gifted part of it to the university. He is no exception. The university has a building dedicated to research by Boeing that makes sophisticated weapons used by United States and Israel in the current genocide in Gaza.
UQ Vice Chancellor promised a student encampment last week to provide them with an audited report of the universities dealings with weapons manufacturers. Not good enough. The university senate must kick all the weapons dealers off campus.
University of Queensland steals wages from workers and uses the money saved to solicit weapons research. This must end now.
This article is dedicated to the 50,000 Palestinians who have been murdered as a result of the onslaught by Israel and by United States currently destroying the civilian population of Gaza and in the occupied territories during the past eight months.
Ian Curr
8 June 2024