WA uni accused of misusing work contracts

Two staff at Curtin University have allegedly been collectively deprived of more than $260,000 in entitlements after being placed on dozens of consecutive fixed-term contracts.

Research engineer Frank Thomas worked at Curtin between 1998 and 2013 on 17 consecutive fixed-term contracts.

Research associate Amos Maggi was employed on 24 consecutive fixed-term contracts between 1993 and 2013.

When the pair at the university's Centre for Marine Science and Technology were made redundant in 2013, they allegedly missed out on significant sums of money because of the nature of their employment.

Their lawyer, Josh Bornstein, said Curtin acted unlawfully by breaching its enterprise agreements and had shown a callous disregard for the pair's loyalty over decades.

"A system designed to deal with the need for short-term staff has been seriously abused," he said.

Curtin is now facing Federal Court action in Perth, accused of overusing the contracts.