23 June 2026

Charles Darwin University will back-pay more than $4 million, including interest and superannuation, to over 800 underpaid employees, as part of an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

The university has rectified most of the underpayments, with 612 current and former employees back-paid more than $3.5 million.

As of January, the university had calculated that over $500,000 was owed but not yet paid to 211 current and former employees. A payroll review for a further 1,483 current and former employees – mostly higher education academics – is underway with the total number of underpaid employees to be identified as part of this process.

The university told the FWO it expects to complete remediation to all underpaid employees by the end of September.

The impacted employees were underpaid between 2016 and 2022, with most working at the university’s main campus in Darwin and others working at the other Northern Territory campuses in Alice Springs, Palmerston and Katherine, as well as the Sydney campus. The impacted employees are current and former casual employees engaged in professional and academic roles.

As part of the EU, Charles Darwin University will make a contrition payment of $200,000 to the Cleaning Accountability Framework, an independent, not-for-profit organisation that aims to improve conditions and standards in property cleaning services.

Completed back-payments were as high as $242,280, including superannuation and interest. The average underpayment was $1,700.

After the Fair Work Ombudsman contacted all universities in 2020 asking them to ensure they were complying with workplace laws, Charles Darwin University engaged a legal firm to review its compliance. It self-reported its non-compliance to the FWO in March 2022.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said, “Charles Darwin University deserves credit for committing significant time and resources to put in place corrective measures that will ensure both full remediation of impacted staff and improved compliance for the future.

“Improving workplace compliance in the universities sector has been a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman. Our preference is for universities to engage openly with us about any compliance failures and for us to work with them to correct their problems.

“We’ve made important progress nationally, including through Enforceable Undertakings like this, and we look forward to continuing to work with the leadership teams at universities nationally to assist them to do the sustained, smart work required to ensure their employees benefit from full compliance with workplace laws.”

The university breached its 2013, 2018 and 2022 enterprise agreements by failing to correctly pay casual hourly rates of pay, penalty rates, minimum engagement period, overtime and overtime-related entitlements.

A decentralised payroll system meant that some timesheets were not processed to accurately record overtime hours worked and the payroll system was not properly configured to ensure employees received their correct entitlements.

In addition to the underpayment rectifications and contrition payment, the Enforceable Undertaking commits Charles Darwin University to implementing measures to ensure future compliance, including:

• providing the FWO information about the systems and process improvements it is implementing to ensure future compliance
• ensuring relevant staff complete additional training regarding their Fair Work Act obligations
• commissioning, at its own cost, up to two independent compliance audits to check it is meeting all employee entitlements – and rectifying any underpayments found
• informing staff of the EU through all-staff emails or written notices to affected employees
• maintaining an employee payments complaint and review mechanism, strengthening worker voice by giving employees a clear way to raise issues and making sure there is accountability for those concerns to be addressed.

Since announcing in 2022 that addressing systemic non-compliance in the university sector was a priority, the Fair Work Ombudsman has entered into Enforceable Undertakings with 11 other universities, being, Monash University, La Trobe University, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Newcastle and Charles Sturt University, Griffith University, the University of Wollongong, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Tasmania.

The FWO secured a $213,120 penalty against the University of NSW in December 2025 in our litigation over the university’s record-keeping breaches between 2017 and 2022.

The FWO has also secured court penalties against the University of Melbourne.

Employers and employees can visit www.fairwork.gov.au or call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 for free advice and assistance about their rights and obligations in the workplace. A free interpreter service is available on 13 14 50.

Workplace issues can be reported online anonymously, including in languages other than English. Employees can also seek information from their union, if they are a member, or from their employer. Employers can seek information from their employer association if they are a member.