Johannesburg - Wage negotiations between the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa) and cash-strapped Eskom have kicked off on a bad note.
Numsa said it had met with Eskom management in the Central Bargaining Forum (CBF), and for the first day of wage talks on Wednesday, the union said it was not happy with the behaviour of the Eskom officials at the talks.
"Eskom management behaved appallingly by failing to present written submissions to the CBF. We were supposed to start negotiations at 9am, but we ended up starting at 12.45pm because Eskom needed time to write its submissions so that it could be shared with all parties. It took them nearly three hours to respond," the union said in a statement.
Numsa’s core demands are a two-year wage agreement, a 15% wage increase, correcting the income differentials, six months of full-pay maternity leave and 14 days of paternity leave, 80% medical aid contribution from the employer and 20% contribution from workers.
"Secondly, when they eventually did respond, they wasted everyone’s time again by falsely claiming that most of the demands we had made should not be ventilated in the CBF, but should be raised in other Eskom forums. This is nonsense. They did not even respond to the demands to say whether they could afford them or not. They simply tried to defer them to other forums for discussion. They are not negotiating in good faith because these are the same issues that have definitely been raised in the CBF before and a collective agreement was reached on them," Numsa said.
Numsa said the only demand to which Eskom responded was to inform unions that they wanted a one-year agreement and that the power utility was only offering a 3.75% increase.
Numsa also demanded that no power stations be closed and that housing allowances increase by R1 175.
"We condemn Eskom for their unprofessionalism and also for their frequent delay tactics. This is not how the executive management of a SOE should behave. It is unheard of for negotiators to arrive at a session of this nature with written notes instead of a clear presentation of their position.
“What is worse is that by Thursday of last week, all unions had submitted their demands, so they had enough time to prepare properly for the session, and it is unacceptable for them to be so unprepared. This is a reflection of the pathetic state of leadership within Eskom at the moment. This is why we are permanently in the dark about load shedding because we are led by people who do not take themselves, Eskom, or even the public seriously," the union said.
The Star