ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp

Second batch of pay remediation payments

We are pleased to announce that the second batch of pay remediation payments were made to impacted employees on 6 June 2025 and consisted of the following: 

• Shift penalty and minimum engagement shortfall up till 30 September 2023
• Pay shortfall for the period 1 October 2023 to 4 July 2024
• Superannuation shortfall (paid directly to the superannuation fund)
• Interest on the pay shortfall
• Lost earnings on the superannuation shortfall

Impacted employees may receive either a pre 30 September 2023 shift penalty/ minimum engagement payment shortfall or a post 1 October 2023 pay shortfall or both.

If you previously received a shift penalty / minimum engagement remediation payment shortfall in 2024, the shift penalty /minimum engagement payment made on 6 June 2025 is an additional payment.  

Interest

Interest has been applied to the payments as per below:

• 94% for the pre 30 September 2023 shift penalty / minimum engagement shortfalls. This being the average interest of the Federal Court pre-judgement interest rates from 1 Jul 2014 to 30 June 2025. The interest has been computed from the first day of the financial year where the shortfall was reported up to 15 May 2025. 

• 29% for the pay shortfalls that occurred between 1 October 2023 and 4 July 2024. This being the overall average interest of the Federal Court pre-judgement interest rates from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2025. The interest has been computed from the pay period in which the shortfall was due, up until 15 May 2025. 

• 10% for the lost earnings on superannuation. 

Superannuation

The superannuation shortfall has been calculated at 11.5% for Casuals and 17% for non-casuals.

Correspondence detailing the payments will be issued shortly. 

UOW is committed to a number of measures to ensure future compliance with the relevant industrial instruments and Commonwealth workplace relations laws. This review is still ongoing. If we identify any other issues which impact you, we will be in contact separately. 

Below is a summary of the issues that have been remediated and how the pay shortfalls were determined. 

If you have any queries, please contact us on pay-remediation@uow.edu.au or 02 4221 4000 (Monday to Friday between 9.00am and 5.00pm AEST).

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Summary of Issues Remediated

Below is a summary of the payroll issues that have been remediated and the assessment that was taken to determine if there was an underpayment. 

Shift Penalties

Issue: Casual employees were not being paid shift loadings inclusive of weekend shift penalties and public holiday shift penalties or were paid incorrect shift loadings.

Impacted Employees: Casual Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 4 October 2019 to 4 July 2024

Action taken

• Identified casual employees who worked on weekends and public holidays or worked before 6am or past 6pm on a weekday during the review period.
• Calculated the shift penalties they should have received under the 2019 UOW Professional Services Enterprise Agreement and compared this to the actual pay they received and recorded any shortfall.
• For the evening and weekend shift penalties, the pay the employee would have received under the 2019 UOW Professional Services Enterprise Agreement was then compared against the pay the employee would have received under the Higher Education Industry General Staff Award (HEIGS) and recorded any
• The shortfalls from both assessments were added up to determine the overall shortfall due to the employee.

Minimum Engagement

Issue: Casual professional services employees who were engaged for less than three hours and were eligible for a minimum engagement top up (to three hours), were not being paid the top up payment.

Impacted Employees: Casual Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 20 September 2016 to 4 July 2024

Action Taken

• Identified casual professional services employees who worked less than three hours during the review period.
• Identified impacted employees who on the day worked were eligible for the minimum top up.
• Calculated the top payments they would have received under the 2019 UOW Professional Services Enterprise Agreement and the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp of ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp (General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2014 (PSEA)
• Any shortfalls were collated together and paid to the employee as a single amount.

Leave Accrual on Additional Hours

Issue: Part time (non-casual) professional services employees who claimed additional hours were not credited with the correct annual leave and long service leave accruals.

Impacted Employees: Non-Casual Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 1 November 2014 to 4 July 2024

Action taken

• Identified part time employees who claimed additional hours during the review period.
• Calculated the annual leave and Long Service Leave accruals that they should have received for the additional hours claimed.
• Compared the calculation against the actual annual leave and long service leave accruals the employee received to determine if there was a shortfall.
• If there was a shortfall and the employee was still employed by UOW, the difference was credited to the employee leave balance. For former employees the accrual was converted into a dollar value and paid to the former employee together with any resulting leave loading shortfall.

Calculating severance, voluntary redundancy, and early retirement payments

Issue: The average service fraction was used to calculate severance, voluntary redundancy, or early retirement payments instead of using the employee’s last service fraction.

Impacted Employees: Continuing and Fixed Term Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 1 March 2017 to 4 July 2024

Action taken

• Identified all severance, voluntary redundancy and early retirement payments made during the review period.
• Identified the employee’s service fraction at the time of termination.
• Recalculated the employee’s entitlements using the employee’s last service fraction.
• Compared the new calculation against the original termination payment to determine if there was a shortfall. 

Special Additional leave (SAL)

Issue: Where employees received an increment increase to their salary level, or were promoted, it identified that there were some instances where the SAL deduction was calculated on the increased salary instead of the salary at the time of purchasing the SAL. This resulted in an over-deduction of the employee’s salary.

Impacted Employees: Non-Casual Academic Employees

Review Period: 18 September 2020 to 18 September 2022

Action taken

• Identified any academic employees who received a salary increase due to an increment or promotion after the SAL deduction commenced.
• Calculated the SAL deduction that should have applied based on the pre increment/ promotion salary and compared this to the actual SAL deductions made from the employees pay to determine if there was a shortfall.

Work outside the span of hours

Issue: Where UOW rostered an employee to work outside the span of hours in Clause 21 of the Higher Education Industry General Staff Award (HEIGS), UOW was to ensure that their remuneration was to exceed the remuneration that would have been paid under HEIGS for those hours.

Impacted Employees: Continuing and Fixed Term Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 4 October 2019 to 4 July 2024

Action taken

• Identified employees who worked outside the HEIGS Award span of hours during the review period.
• Calculated the pay the employee would have received under the HEIGS Award with the overtime rates from the HEIGS Award being applied to any hours worked outside the HEIGS span of hours or where the employee worked more than their ordinary hours.
• Calculated the pay they received for that shift under the 2019 UOW Professional Services Enterprise Agreement and compared this to the pay they would have received under HEIGS Award to determine if there was shortfall.

Weekend Shift Penalties

Issue: Employees whose span of hours included the weekend were not paid the correct shift penalty rates.

Impacted Employees: Continuing and Fixed Term Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 4 October 2019 to 4 July 2024

Action taken

• Identified employees who worked on weekends as this was within their span of hours.
• Calculated the pay they would have received if the correct penalty rates had been applied to the work done on the weekend and compared this to the actual pay the employee received to determine if there was a shortfall.

Overtime on Weekends and Public Holidays

Issue: Employees whose span of hours did not include the weekend but worked on the weekend or Public Holiday.  

Impacted Employees: Continuing and Fixed Term Professional Services Employees

Review Period: 4 October 2019 to 4 July 2024

Action taken

• Identified employees whose span of hours did not include the weekend or public holiday but worked on the weekend or public holiday.
• Calculated the pay they would have received if the overtime rates had been applied and compared this to the actual pay the employee received to determine if there was a shortfall.
• Any employee who worked overtime on a Sunday for less than 4 hours had their pay topped up to 4 hours.
• Any employee who worked overtime on a public holiday for less than 4 hours had their pay topped up to 4 hours.

Each issue being remediated was assessed independently by reviewing the employee’s timesheet entries and their payslips for the review period and applying the relevant methodology for that entitlement to determine if the employee had been underpaid.

For example, if an employee was impacted by casual shift penalties and minimum engagement, each entitlement was assessed separately.

The assessment was carried out in two parts. The initial analysis reviewed the employee data (timesheets and payslips) up until 30 September 2023. The pay shortfalls from this assessment were made to impacted individuals in November 2024, December 2024, and February 2025 and additional payments made to some employees on 6 June 2025.

The second assessment was carried out for the period 1 October 2023 to 4 July 2024. The pay shortfalls from this assessment were made on 6 June 2025.

Unfortunately, due to technical issues we were unable to process the second batch of remediation payments in May 2025.  We have requested vendor support to enable us to process the payments in the pay of 5 June 2025. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused by this delay.

The analysis of the salary underpayments for the period 1 October 2023 to 25 June 2024 is near completion. We expect these payments to be made in May 2025.  
 
This webpage will be updated shortly with details of each issue which is being remediated as part of this process and a brief explanation as to how the shortfall for each entitlement was determined. 
 
If you require additional information, please email pay-remediation@uow.edu.au or phone 02 4221 4000 

We thank you for your patience.

We are pleased to announce that the first batch of remediation payments was made to some of the impacted employees on 26 November 2024. For further information regarding these payments please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions below.

The audit is still ongoing and we expect the final batch of payments to be finalised by the end of Q1 2025.

If you have believe you have been impacted by the pay remediation and any of your personal or payment details have changed, please provide us with your updated details via our .

Q: How confident can we be with the remediation?
A: The ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp is working closely with the Fair Work Ombudsman and has engaged a reputable, independent, external service provider to undertake a forensic audit to comprehensively identify issues and affected employees.

Q: How does UOW intend to stop this happening again?
A: The continuing focus for the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp is to make changes to systems, processes, and practice across the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp. There have also been some changes to the UOW Enterprise Agreements to ensure compliance and accuracy of payments going forward.

Review of process design, as well as certain system upgrades, is underway.

The external service provider is also working with the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp to develop recommendations to strengthen and streamline the suite of pay-related entitlement controls.

Q: I am not on the impacted list?
A: The audit is still in progress and the first batch of payments was made on 21 Nov 2024. We expect the audit to be finalised by the end of Q1 2025.

In the meantime, if you believe you have been impacted and your payment or personal details have changed, you can update your details via our .

Please note, Certified Proof of Identity will be required for any changes to bank or superannuation details.

Once the audit is completed, all non-impacted employees who contacted us via our secure online form will be informed of the outcome.

Q: What is the taxation implication?
A: Payments that are more than $1,200 will appear as a ‘Lump Sum E’ in your payslip.

The interest on the payment and the earnings on the superannuation contribution have not been taxed.

For former employees, the amount shown in Lump Sum E of your payslip, is tax that maybe due but has not been deducted from the payment (as advised by the ATO). You potentially may have to pay this tax when completing your tax return for the 2024/2025 FY.

Q: What is the interest payable?
A: The lost earning on super is calculated at a flat rate of 10%.

For all other entitlements the interest rate is 5.82% per annum. For voluntary redundancy payments, the start date is the date of termination to 7 November 2024. For all other payments, interest is from the pay period end date in which the entitlement was due to 7 November 2024.

Note: these have not been taxed and therefore may impact your tax liability for the 2024/2025 financial year. 

Q: Will I get a payslip?
A: For current employees, a payslip can be obtained via WebKiosk.

For former employees with a personal email on file, a copy of the payslip will be emailed to them.

For former employees without a personal email on file, the payslip will be mailed to the address we hold on file.

Q: What specific job/s does the payment relate to?
A: The calculation relates to all jobs you held during the period audit period The shortfall has been consolidated into one payment which has been made from the last active job you held with UOW.

Q: How do I ensure my payment is made to an active bank account?
A: You will need to provide us with your updated bank details and certified proof of identity via our . Once received, we will update your bank details and reprocess the payment.

Q: Payment has been made to an inactive superannuation account – how can I get it updated?
A: If the superannuation contribution is rejected, we will staple it to an existing superannuation account. Stapling is where we identify your active super account via the Australian Taxation Office.

Q: I am retired and I do not have an active super account – how can I access these funds?
A: If the super contribution is returned from the super fund and we are unable to staple the contributions to another superannuation account, we will contact you to discuss the options available.

Q: This has had impact on my tax returns and I need to engage an accountant. Will UOW be covering the cost of engaging an accountant?
A: No, you will be responsible for these costs

Remediation

We are nearing the final stages of our payroll remediation project, and are on track with preparations of the payments in the payroll system to be completed by the end of October. Payments to impacted employees are expected to be made in November. The time line has shifted slightly as a result of the thorough validation process being undertaken by UOW and the commitment to ensuring issues are properly addressed. UOW continues to work with the Fair Work Ombudsman on the remediation and the approach to payments. 

For Current Employees - 

• Impacted Employees: Remediation payments will be made to the bank details currently on your employment record. You will receive an email with details of the payment.
• Non-Impacted Employees: If you have lodged a ticket via our  and were not impacted, you will be informed of the outcome via your work email.

For Former Employees - 

• Impacted Employees with Updated Details: Payments will be made to the updated bank and superannuation details you provided via our .
• Impacted Employees without Updated Details: We will contact you to request updated payment details through our .
• Non-Impacted Employees: If you provided updated contact details via our  but were not impacted, you will be informed of the outcome via email.

We encourage any former employees who believe they have been impacted by the remediation to submit their updated details via our . 

Remediation

We are nearing the final stages of our payroll remediation project, with the first payments to impacted employees expected to towards the end of Q3 2024. 

A thorough review has been undertaken, and continues, to ensure all impacted current and former employees are correctly identified and that any issues are properly addressed.

For Current Employees - 

• Impacted Employees: Remediation payments will be made to the bank details currently on your employment record. You will receive an email with details of the payment.
• Non-Impacted Employees: If you have lodged a ticket via our  and were not impacted, you will be informed of the outcome via your work email.

For Former Employees - 

• Impacted Employees with Updated Details: Payments will be made to the updated bank and superannuation details you provided via our .
• Impacted Employees without Updated Details: We will contact you to request updated payment details through our .
• Non-Impacted Employees: If you provided updated contact details via our  but were not impacted, you will be informed of the outcome via email.

We encourage any former employees who believe they have been impacted by the remediation to submit their updated details via our . 

Remediation

The ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp is continuing to work through the pay-related issues announced by the Vice Chancellor on 13 July 2023. The ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp is working closely with the Fair Work Ombudsman and have engaged a reputable, independent, external service provider to undertake a forensic audit to comprehensively identify issues and affected employees. The service provider will work with the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp to quantify the remediation payments for each affected employee. This is a complex process, and UOW is aiming, at this stage, to make payments to affected employees by Q3 2024.

The current focus for the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp is to make changes to systems, processes and practice across the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp, as well as changes to the UOW Enterprise Agreements, to ensure compliance and accuracy of payments going forward. Review of process design, as well as certain system upgrades, is underway, and the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp is negotiating relevant changes to the Enterprise Agreements with the unions. The service provider will also work with the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp to develop recommendations to strengthen and streamline the suite of pay-related entitlement controls.

Through the remediation process, all issues will be fully addressed. The ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp intends to fully repay affected employees using a methodology that is endorsed by the Fair Work Ombudsman, to ensure payments are accurate. Payments will be made as promptly as possible and as this process progresses, communication with staff, students, and all relevant stakeholders, will be maintained.

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