By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South Africa’s crippling power cuts are approaching an annual record, and there are still six months to go.
Spurred by an illegal strike this week that added to its woes, utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. has already implemented controlled blackouts equal to more than 90% of the energy it shed for the whole of 2021, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
The power company has cut 2,276 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2022 versus the current-record 2,521-gigawatt hours last year, the state-owned researcher said. Eskom switches off supply to large swathes of the country to avoid a total collapse of a grid fed by ageing and unreliable, mostly coal, plants prone to tripping.
Protests that started last week after a deadlock in wage negotiations have exacerbated the situation, deepening outages to so-called Stage 6 — removing 6,000 megawatts of demand — for the first time since the only other time it occurred, in 2019.
Eskom this week cut more than four times the amount of energy at Stage 6 than it did previously, according to CSIR.
Meanwhile Eskom agreed to unions’ demands on the reinstatement of some conditions of employment in addition to the 7% salary increase offer it tabled.
Eskom had amended the conditions of service unilaterally last year, taking away some of the benefits.
After a rough start to the wage increase talks in Sandton on Friday morning, as parties struggled to find mutual ground, in the afternoon parties began finding each other as Eskom started budging.
After a lunch break, a separate smaller meeting which involved Eskom’s senior leadership led by Eskom human resources manager Elsie Pule and the union’s senior leaders — including Numsa’s Irvin Jim and Num’s William Mabapa — was held outside the hall where the wage negotiations were taking place.
It was at this meeting that Eskom agreed in principle to reinstate the conditions of employment, which included transport benefits for those called for standby shifts and the double pay for Sunday shifts.
After a deadlock during the 2021 wage negotiations in the central bargaining forum, Eskom had opted to unilaterally implement a 1.5% wage increase on July 1 2021, and made changes in the conditions of service, taking away some benefits workers enjoyed.
“What’s remaining now is how that is going to be done, and there’s just no agreement yet in terms of how the reinstatement of benefits is to be implemented, said a source.”
Jim said unions had a duty to consult members before giving Eskom a formal response and that they would give feedback to the power utility’s management on Tuesday.