Why this page exists
Intermediaries have a poor record in the trades. Workers have been charged for access to work, placed on rates below the instrument that governed the job, and shopped around without knowing it. Those practices are the reason unions scrutinise platforms like ours, and the scrutiny is earned.
We would rather publish where we stand than be asked. What follows is how Poachd is built, what we will not do, and what we ask of the contractors who use it.
Five commitments
The worker never pays. Ever.
Tradespeople pay nothing to build a passport, be discovered, match or message, and we never deduct from anyone's pay. Fees are charged to the engaging business only. This is the Employer Pays Principle, and it is a structural commitment. It is written into our Terms.
We are not labour hire.
Poachd does not employ, on-hire, pay, roster, direct, supervise or discipline any tradesperson, and does not sit in the payment chain between a contractor and a worker. Our service is the introduction and the record of it. The engagement is made directly between the contractor and the tradesperson under the contractor's own agreement.
We do not undercut industrial instruments.
Where an award or enterprise agreement governs the work, that instrument sets the floor - not us. Poachd does not negotiate rates, does not broker a discount and has no commercial interest in a lower rate: our fee is sized against the value of the engagement, so suppressing pay would reduce our own revenue.
We do not induce breach or raid sites.
We do not encourage anyone to walk off a job, break a contract, carry over confidential material, or bring their employer's workforce or clients with them. Contractors using the platform to strip an intact team off a project in breach of that workforce's obligations lose access.
The worker chooses to be seen.
A tradesperson's identity stays withheld until they choose to show interest in a role. Nobody is listed, marketed or shopped around without acting first. Passports can be hidden or deleted at any time.
The first two are not policy choices we could quietly reverse - they are how the commercial model is built and they sit in the Terms of Service. The allocation of every hiring obligation is set out in Australian hiring compliance.
Where our interests overlap
Verified tickets, not claimed ones
Every licence and endorsement on the platform is reviewed against the documents supplied, and contractors are told to verify with the issuing authority before anyone touches licensed work. Unverifiable claims are a safety problem before they are a hiring problem.
Transparent rates
Rate bands are visible to both sides before a conversation starts. Opacity is what lets a below-instrument offer survive; visibility is what kills it.
Recruitment-fee-free corridors
Charging workers for access to work is the mechanism behind most labour exploitation in cross-border construction. A platform that structurally cannot charge the worker removes that mechanism from the corridor it operates in.
Skills visibility for the shortage
The shortage of licensed and high-voltage-capable trades is the constraint on infrastructure delivery in every market we operate in. Making existing capability visible - including capability sitting idle in an adjacent vertical - is in the interest of the workforce and the projects alike.
What we ask of contractors
- Apply the award or enterprise agreement that governs the work, in full.
- Respect notice periods and existing contractual obligations when setting start dates.
- Do not use Poachd to solicit an intact team away from a project in breach of their obligations.
- Meet your own site consultation, right-of-entry and delegate obligations - Poachd is not on site and cannot discharge them for you.
- Do not ask a candidate to bring documents, pricing, drawings, clients or workforce from a current or former employer.
Region by region
Industrial relations are not one system across our markets. We open corridors one at a time, domestic-first, and confirm our position in each before we operate there.
Electrical and construction work on major projects, including data centre builds, is commonly covered by enterprise agreements, with strong union coverage in the electrical and construction trades.
Our current market. Poachd operates as an introduction service only: the enterprise agreement or award that covers the site continues to govern pay and conditions, and the contractor remains the employer and the PCBU. We do not tender for labour supply and do not place workers on our own books.
Industrial relations run through a tripartite model, with fair-consideration and employment-practice guidelines applying to hiring.
We treat labour institutions as partners on skills verification and workforce development rather than as counterparties, and we design for the local fair-hiring framework rather than around it.
Rapid data centre build-out alongside significant reliance on migrant labour, and heightened international scrutiny of recruitment-fee and forced-labour indicators in construction supply chains.
Our no-fee-to-the-worker structure directly addresses the highest-risk indicator in this corridor. We do not recruit workers for cross-border placement, and we will not open that lane without the licensing and diligence to do it properly.
Employment placement and worker dispatch are separately and strictly regulated, and dispatch of labour into certain work is restricted or prohibited outright.
We do not operate a dispatch model anywhere, which is the model those regimes are built to constrain. Any market entry is preceded by confirming the licensing position for an introduction service in that jurisdiction - corridor by corridor, domestic-first.
For union organisers and IR teams
If you represent a union, an employer body or an enterprise IR function and want to test any of the above, we will walk you through the operating model, the fee structure, what data we hold and the verification steps we run. If you can show us a way the platform is being used against the interests of the workforce, we want to know - and we will act on it.
Email hello@poachd.co with "Workforce relations" in the subject line and it will be routed accordingly.
This page sets out Poachd's own operating commitments and how we intend to work alongside unions, employer bodies and regulators. It is not an endorsement by, accreditation from, or agreement with any union, industrial body or regulator, and it is not legal advice. Industrial instruments, licensing regimes and obligations differ by jurisdiction, site and engagement.
Questions about this page?
The Poachd team is here to help. Email hello@poachd.co and we'll come back to you.