Seek-backed Hireup, NDIS providers targeted in union pay campaign
Up to 30,000 disability support workers are being incorrectly paid by NDIS providers, a union says, including those employed by a prominent startup backed by ASX-listed employment giant Seek.
In an appearance last year before a Senate committee on Labor's proposed gig economy reforms, Jordan O'Reilly, the chief executive of disability services startup Hireup, blasted what he described as the "big lie" at the heart of the sharing economy.
This lie, "allowed companies to get away with misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees", he said. "We say that's rubbish and that all platform companies, especially those who earn revenue off the back of workers' hours of labour, should be doing more when it comes to minimum standards for those very workers".
Hireup, which raised $40 million from the venture arm of ASX-listed HR giant Seek in 2021, is the country's largest online platform for NDIS workers and an outspoken critic of practices in the gig economy. But now, it finds itself among a group of NDIS providers at the centre of white hot union anger over underpayment.
In June, the Australian Services Union launched a campaign against "dodgy" NDIS providers that were classifying disability support workers incorrectly under the relevant award and paying them less than they were entitled to. Including, the union claims, Hireup.
