Uni Vice-Chancellors keep getting richer while those who teach and research are left behind
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The pay of university Vice-Chancellors has soared well beyond that of the teaching staff for no improvement in management.
Australia’s Vice-Chancellors – the ‘CEOs’ of today’s corporatised university sector – are among the highest paid in the world. This remuneration explosion occurred over just a few decades. If we account for inflation, Vice-Chancellors were each paid about $300,000 per year in 1985; today’s figure is over $1 million.
Other university sector workers have not shared in this pay boom: one analysis showed that in 1985 an average Vice-Chancellor at an elite research-intensive university was paid 3.1 times more than an early career lecturer, by 2018 this ratio had increased to 16.1.
Despite many Vice-Chancellors taking salary reductions during COVID-19, these figures remain stark in the post-pandemic period.
In 2022 Vice-Chancellor remuneration was at least 7 times more than that for university lecturers, more than 9 times than for high school teacher and over 10 times more than for primary school teachers. Meanwhile the average remuneration for university tutors, a job that has become highly casualised, insecure and often involves significant hours of unpaid work to ensure their student receive quality tuition and assessment feedback, is under $23,000 per year, less than 3% of average Vice-Chancellor remuneration.
Poor labour conditions are not just an issue for tutors, they are rife across the sector. The National Tertiary Education Union estimates that there is “more than $400 million in wage theft” across the university sector. Despite sky-high Vice-Chancellor remuneration are often justified on the grounds that they are managing a huge organisation, these management skills often do not allow them to prevent labour exploitation.
For example, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne is one of the highest paid in the world, from 2014 to 2023 remuneration for this position totalled about $13.6 million.
In December 2024, the university signed an Enforceable Undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman admitting to contravening the Fair Work Act between early 2014 and early 2024. The university also committed to paying more than 25,000 staff a total of over $72 million. This included about $13.4 million just in interest on underpayments and owed superannuation, about the same value as remuneration for the Vice-Chancellors.
Things don’t appear to be getting any better for staff, budget cuts across seven universities could lead to more than 1,000 job losses, meanwhile ANU staff recently rejected a proposal to surrender a below-inflation pay rise. The Australian Universities Accord, the government’s plan to fix the sector, includes no recommendations to significantly improve conditions for university staff.
The Government has also announced the creation of a national expert governance council, which will likely include rules for Vice-Chancellor remuneration. Reporting suggests this body will only issue guidance rather than binding rules. This guidance is likely to link Vice-Chancellor remuneration with remuneration for comparable roles of similar scale and complexity as those in the public service. However, remuneration of senior public service executives has also skyrocketed in recent decades.
While not quite reaching the absurdity of Australian Vice-Chancellors, in 2023 Australian public service heads of department received an average of over $900,000 in remuneration per year. The OECD’s latest survey of compensation for senior government managers revealed that Australia’s top public servants are the highest paid across the entire OECD, the same was not true for lower-level public service staff such as secretarial positions.
Vice-Chancellor pay is out of control while the sector is plagued by low pay, poor job security, unpaid hours, and employment law contraventions. It’s time for a fairer deal for people who do the bulk of the work at universities, such as teaching and researching, and a reduction in the exorbitant salaries of senior management who let these labour conditions continue
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