Macquarie University faces alleged illegal redundancies, Charles Darwin University hit with underpayments
Two universities in Australia are facing controversies for breaches in the workplace, with one involving alleged forced redundancy of academics and another facing underpayments to current and former staff.
Macquarie University is facing the forced redundancy allegations, with two academics from the Faculty of Arts pursuing a claim at the Fair Work Commission (FWC) that they were illegally targeted for their union activities, ABC News reported.
One of the academics, Jo Faulkner, is the vice president of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at Macquarie University branch.
Faulkner claims that her redundancy was the result of her advocacy and disputes with management, as she was "very much always on the front lines of battles between management and staff."
"I think that's part of the strategy and it's illegal," she said as quoted by ABC News.
The other academic made redundant is Middle East Studies expert Jumana Bayeh, who claimed she became a target after publicly challenging previous management decisions at the Fair Work Commission and a state government inquiry into university governance.
Both academics asked the Redundancy Review Committee (RRC) to examine the layoffs. Two out of the three-person committee found that the university may not have acted "fairly and properly" in Faulkner's redundancy.
In Bayeh's case, the committee was unanimous that the...
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