If the choice is conspiricy or stuffup, take stuffup!
If you think about it, the original policy was unworkable. If you don't know how long it will be until profit, how long do you make the EA? What do you bargain for if there are no pay rises on offer? The answer is there could be no agreement because bargaining representatives are hardly going to trade anything away for a zero pay rise policy. So, it quickly became apparent that the original policy was going to be a complete failure ending up with open negotiations and being exposed to industrial action. There were other problems, but I think these were the main ones.