Career advancement policies ‘used for wage theft’

Universities use the lure of career advancement as a way of systematically underpaying their tenured staff, according to Australian researchers.

An analysis of publicly available promotion policies at the country’s universities has found that most require applicants to already be working above their pay grades.

Nineteen of the 34 institutions in the study had policies stating that aspirants must have been performing at the level of the position sought “for every component of the role” – often for years.

Another 11 universities required the candidates’ output in at least one aspect of the job to meet the standards of the higher-paid position.

Just four institutions merely required applicants to “demonstrate their capacity or potential” to work at the targeted level. And at one of the four, this policy was contradicted by an “academic promotion rule” requiring current performance at the next level up.

“What the university sector has achieved in promotion requirements is both devious and masterful,” the researchers write in the journal Higher Education Research and Development. “[The] sector has legitimised a method to make people work…at a more senior level for an extended period without adequate pay.

“[This] has undoubtedly…resulted in millions of dollars in savings. At the same time, these tactics have allowed the sector to stall the promotion aspirations of thousands of academics.”

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The authors – the University of Manchester’s Troy Heffernan and Charles Sturt University’s Kathleen Smithers – describe the practice as an underacknowledged form of the “wage theft” occurring at “pandemic levels” in Australian universities.

“[It is] a more explicit form of wage theft – one written into publicly accessible policy documents,” they write.

They told Times Higher Education that in other educational settings such as schools, staff on secondment were typically paid at higher rates. These “acting” stints were then accepted as evidence of people’s suitability for permanent promotion.

“If you are doing these tasks, you should be getting paid for it,” the pair said. “If you are at the top of lecturer level and excelling at [that] level, [you should not need] to undertake more senior roles to prove your capability.

“We would encourage universities to foster opportunities for professional development for those looking to be promoted, but also to utilise acting positions and secondments to enable staff to be paid while proving their capacity.”

The authors said tasks previously deemed “the responsibility of the professoriate” were increasingly being handed to junior academics. And while promotional policies were not necessarily applied in practice, this could either favour or disadvantage applicants.

“The policies enable a large level of subjectivity in the decision-making,” they said. “To one committee, ‘sustained performance’ or ‘demonstrated capacity’ may be evidenced in one way. To a committee with different membership, it could look very different.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com