Jobseekers say their employment providers have put them in positions where they have been given just one shift a fortnight, had to clean up large amounts of human faeces, and have been cut off payments after a close family member died.
In one case, Rebecca, who did not want her last name used, said her disability provider, Multiple Solutions, had registered her as a sole contractor and placed her into a role cleaning an aged care home in Gawler, South Australia, without telling her she was technically self-employed.
“They said they found a job for me … they never brought up it was self-employed,” she said.
A complaint sent to the Department of Social Services by her social worker outlines that Rebecca has poor numeracy and difficulty with literacy, requiring assistance to complete forms. Multiple Solutions said it could not comment on specific circumstances but the disability provider promoted “choice and control” among jobseekers.
After starting in the job, Rebecca says her social worker asked her what type of contract she was on and she realised her payslip had no information about tax.
She said she had been set up with an ABN months beforehand but had not understood what it was for.
“I was scared because, you know if you don’t pay tax you get fined, you can get in trouble for that,” Rebecca said. “I think they should have explained it.”
Rebecca’s support worker is now helping her move providers but the situation left her feeling distressed.
In late November a damning review of the Workforce Australia system said the decades-long full privatisation of Australia’s employment services system had failed, and urged the government to re-establish a commonwealth job agency.
But welfare advocates say it did not go far enough – the committee shied away from abolishing mutual obligations, the policy that forces jobseekers to complete tasks such as applying for jobs or attending training or else their payments are stopped. They say the provider system, which will cost $9.5bn over the next four years, is pushing people into unstable roles.
Brad, who did not want his real name used, was an education consultant who often worked with WISE, one of the country’s biggest job providers. After he suffered a mental breakdown last year he chose the provider to help him find work.
One job WISE helped him secure was as an at-home carer for Home Instead, one of the largest care providers in the country. But he was only offered a few hours of work each week. During one fortnight period, his payslip showed he was paid just $28.73 for one hour of work.
“I wouldn’t call that employment,” he said.
“It wasn’t just the one-hour or a seven-hour shift here and there – then nothing for the rest of the week – it was the fact that it’s your petrol, it’s your transport. There was no way of covering parking or any of those things.”
On one shift, he says, he was forced to clean up human faeces. “I had seven bags of soiled faeces and urine that I had to remove from the premises.”
He claims when he told WISE he did not want to do the job for an hour a week, he was threatened his payments being suspended.
Brad then went to JobCo, another employment provider, where he says within eight weeks he was in full-time employment back within his own sector of education.
‘Afraid to say no to providers’
In New South Wales, jobseeker Brock Chaplain said he had his payments cut off by his job provider Global Skills, a week after his mother died in September this year, because he did not attend his appointment. Afterwards, he said he had to attend meetings that clashed with times he was at his paid casual job.
After his mother died, Global Skills offered Chaplain counselling but moved his appointment forward by two weeks. He said he did not attend it because he was grieving, and his payments were suspended.
“They told me, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s all good, no problem,’ and then still cut my payments and made me ring up and get it all sorted again,” Chaplain said.
In August, he emailed to tell his job provider he had picked up an extra shift at work and would need to reschedule a meeting. In the return email, the provider demanded that he come into the office on his lunch break as it is in the same shopping centre.
“Unfortunately I don’t understand how working around … your working responsibilities is unreasonable,” his employment consultant wrote in the reply email.
“While you are in receipt of financial assistance by the government you do have requirements as per our participation plan.”
Chaplain said he had missed work “at least three or four times” because of the meeting times.
Guardian Australia contacted each of the employment providers and was told they could not comment on individual cases.
“WISE Employment is one of Australia’s leading non-for-profit employment services providers and has over 15,000 interactions with members of the community every day,” a spokesperson said.
“That being said, if an employer hasn’t fulfilled any of their obligations or expectations, WISE Employment would work alongside its customers to understand their rights and support them to remedy the situation if needed.”
A spokesperson for Multiple Solutions said: “Multiple Solutions is committed to being a trusted partner to all people living with disability, illness or injury who seek employment, and we pride ourselves on our commitment to our clients.”
A welfare advocate and officer with the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union, Jeremy Poxon, said the organisation was contacted every week by people who “say their provider is jeopardising their paid work with constant demands for appointments, payslip information, and other mutual obligation requirements”.
“Most of the time, providers don’t bother putting people into jobs at all; rather, they dump them into pointless, demeaning activities that actually make it harder to find work,” Poxon said.
Asked by the Greens senator Janet Rice about what happened when a provider acted inappropriately in Senate estimates earlier this year, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said it did not keep track of apologies or compensation but had “a discussion” with them.
“That will mean a conversation is had and then there will be a discussion in terms of ways that they could improve,” said an executive officer at DEWR, Claire McDonald.
Poxon said that although some “providers do put people into work, the roles typically have such terrible hours, conditions and pay, that nobody would ever apply for them without being forced to.
“Here, our government is essentially funding providers to force disadvantaged people into the crappiest jobs in the labour market.”
The chief executive of Economic Justice Australia, Kate Allingham, said the financial benefits of getting people into work meant some providers often pushed jobseekers into unstable positions.
“You do see people forced into jobs that will exacerbate a health condition, or with poor pay, or where they lack the training or experience,” she said. “People are often afraid to say no to providers, who can threaten a four-week payment cancellation for ‘work refusal’. And employers end up with people who can’t do the job.”
Both the DEWR, which funds employment providers and the DSS, which funds disability employment services, said it could not comment on individual circumstances.
“Disability Employment Service (DES) providers are funded to help people with a disability, injury or health condition find and maintain sustainable employment, a spokesperson for DSS said. “The providers work with individual participants to look at their abilities, and understand their motivation and goals.”
