It's hard not to side with the Qantas workers who want a pay rise when they see their CEO Alan Joyce handed a $2 million bonus at yesterday's AGM meeting. It just not fair, but what they fail to realize is their strike action has caused long delays and left passengers stranded around the country and who needs the aggravation? The uncertainty has turned people away from Qantas in droves and their main competitor - Virgin - is loving it.
Alan Joyce is the man - he's delivered shareholders a handsome profit and 97% voted in favour of his $2 million bonus yesterday amid boos and cat calls from union members in the audience.
The Aircraft Engineers head Steve Purvinas is understandably furious and said "Alan Joyce will use his own $10 million worth of shareholding to vote in favour of his own 71% pay rise and I think that's absolutely disgusting." And who would argue, it is disgusting. Mr Purvinas went on "Here is a man who got $3 million a year and he walked into his boardroom and said 'I can't live on $3 million, I need a $2 million pay rise.'" And Joyce really put the boot in earlier this year when he announced that he will shift the best part of the airline to Asia to cut costs even further at the expense of 1,000 jobs. I think this man is in urgent need of a bodyguard.
In the end, it all comes down to that dirty word - profit and we have to decide where we stand on this issue with Qantas. Do you support the mum and dad investors, ordinary hard working people who own shares in their favourite airline? If you do you will be happy that they have confidence in Mr Joyce and not begrudge him his bonus.
If you hate Mr Joyce with a passion for being able to attract such an obscene salary package, you will probably side with the workers who walked off the job yesterday as the AGM got underway.
But remember this, if the workers continue their strike action and the uncertainty continues, there won't be any Qantas or Alan Joyce to worry about because they will completely disappear and another Aussie icon will hit the dust.
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