More than 97,000 university staff have collectively lost nearly AUD 159 million (USD 104.5 million) in stolen wages, according to an analysis by the National Tertiary Education Union.

The NTEU's second Wage Theft Report analysed 55 incidents of wage theft across 32 institutions, which resulted in AUD 158,711,178 (USD 104.3 million) in underpayments affecting 97,281 individual staff. Most of the underpayments have occurred since 2014.

The state of Victoria leads the nation in university wage theft with AUD 75 million (USD 49.3 million), ahead of New South Wales at AUD 65 million (USD 42.7 million) and Tasmania at AUD 11 million (USD 7.2 million).

According to the report, Melbourne University had underpaid employees by the most, with AUD 45 million (USD 29.6 million) of lost wages for more than 30,000 workers.

The University of Wollongong and the University of Sydney were the next highest institutions on the list, with underpayments of AUD 18 million (USD 11.8 million) and AUD 14.7 million (USD 9.6 million) to more than 12,000 workers each.

The report warned that eight more wage theft cases are not included in the total because they are yet to be finalised. These involve underpayment incidents at Monash University, University of New South Wales, Melbourne University, FedUni, Murdoch University, Curtin University, Deakin University and Charles Darwin University.

The Union added that the claims for the eight wage theft cases are worth millions of dollars, meaning the actual higher education wage theft tally will easily exceed AUD 160 million (USD 105.2 million). Furthermore, there are still several universities that are yet to undertake audits.

NTEU National President Alison Barnes said the scale of wage theft demanded action.

"These shocking figures expose the depths of systemic underpayment in Australian universities," she said. "The fact that wage theft is so widespread in Australian universities is a damning indictment of the current governance model. Wage theft has a devastating impact on the lives of university staff. It can mean struggling to make ends meet, being unable to afford to pay bills, or being forced to take on additional work."

"Widespread casualisation has led to rampant wage theft," Barnes said." Unaccountable vice-chancellors on million-dollar salaries have been in charge of this crisis with almost no accountability. We need urgent action from all governments to reform the governance model for universities and protect workers from exploitation. If universities are to finally become exemplary employers then we need to end the scourge of casualisation using state and federal powers including funding.”

The report comes as the government aims to crack down on wage theft with its new workplace laws. The laws passed the lower house last week. The new laws would see employers who deliberately underpay workers face up to 10 years in prison.