Qantas admits to ‘embarrassing’ pay bungle

‘‘This is an error, plain and simple,’’ said Lesley Grant, Qantas’ group executive of people and culture. ‘‘There was never an intention to underpay people, as shown by the fact that threequarters of people affected by the error are financially better of

Qantas Airways will fork out thousands of dollars in backpay after discovering it had short-changed dozens of workers, while overpaying others.

The Australian airline said yesterday it recently discovered that it had wrongly employed about 220 workers on individual contracts rather than under the relevant enterprise agreement.

Qantas said that resulted in about 55 workers – mostly in its digital marketing and analytics team – being underpaid by an average of A$8000 (NZ$8400) a year over several years. Those workers, who earn about A$90,000 a year, will be paid what they are owed, plus interest and a A$1000 ex-gratia payment.

Meanwhile, about 165 workers had been overpaid by about A$12,000 a year on average because of the misclassification, the airline said.

Qantas said the overpaid workers would keep the extra money and would stay on the same conditions going forward. –Sydney Morning Herald