Johannesburg - The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says it is engaged in wage negotiations with Eskom at a time when South Africa is plunged in perpetual Stage 6 load shedding.
The union says, as a responsible trade union, it approached the negotiations with a progressive attitude only to find that the Eskom wage negotiation team was not taking the collective bargaining process seriously.
“The negotiation team has no mandate to properly negotiate with the trade unions,” the union said.
According to NUM, they had moved from 15% to 12% as mandated by the Shop Stewards Council.
According to an Independent Media report, unions were demanding up to 15% increases in wages, the reinstatement of performance bonuses, R7 000 housing allowances, standardised R1 000 cellphone allowances, and that their medical aid shift to an 80% contribution by the employer.
“We did this to demonstrate that we are willing to bargain, but we were disappointed by the Eskom negotiating team that did not have a mandate to move from their initial offer of 3.75%, which is far less than the 7.1% current CPI figure. The attitude of the Eskom negotiating team is an insult to the toiling Eskom workers who work 24/7 in the cold winter to try to prevent higher stages of load shedding,” said the union.
The union said Eskom was willing to pay billions of rand to independent power producers (IPPs) and diesel sellers while failing to increase wages for the workers.
It requested that Eskom make available the amount of money it is paying contractors and consultants, but Eskom refused to provide that information.
“The NUM characterises the behaviour of Eskom as negotiating in bad faith. We are now left with the third round of negotiations, where Eskom is expected to present the revised offer on May 22-24,” said NUM.
Last month, in a joint statement with Numsa, they were angered by the allegations made by Eskom accusing unions of causing load shedding in the country.
“We call on the media and its handlers to stop this dangerous narrative. This narrative is reckless and irresponsible, meant to influence the public to hate unions and workers at Eskom in particular,” reads the statement.
The Star