Qantas may not win ASU approval for pay freeze after posting record profit

Qantas workers have urged their boss Alan Joyce to back off plans to freeze their pay after the airline posted a record half-year profit of almost A$1b. After Qantas announced its $921m profit before tax Tuesday, the Australian Services Union said it was "going to make it a bit hard" to ask its low-paid members to accept a pay freeze in their next enterprise agreement. The union said workers had increased their productivity since Qantas started shedding 2000 to 5000 jobs in 2014 and did not deserve to have their pay frozen. A Qantas spokeswoman said the wage freeze depended on the agreement of employees. Qantas says it has paid $50m in bonuses for employees who have signed up to the wage freeze, with another $40m set aside for remaining groups including the ASU, whose enterprise agreements will soon be negotiated. <br/>