By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Labour unions National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have accepted Eskom’s 7% wage offer in principle and will sign an agreement to this effect imminently bringing an end to the two weeks strike that plunged the country into rollout blackouts.
This comes after protest disruptions amid a wage talk deadlock that hindered maintenance work at Eskom stations and plunged South Africa into Stage 6 load shedding.
After an intervention from Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan last week, the unions returned to the CBF to resume wage talks.
Eskom revised its wage offer upwards twice, from zero to 5%, and then finally to 7%. Amid the deadlock, the National Union of Mineworkers demanded a 10% wage increase and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa demanded a 12%. Solidarity made a demand of 5.9%.
Trade union Solidarity has confirmed that its members at Eskom have accepted the new wage offer.
The union’s Helgard Cronje: “Solidarity’s demands were less than what Eskom put on the table. That means we do have a mandate to accept the offer.”
The organisation is one of three recognised trade unions at the ailing power utility.
NUM General Secretary William Mabapa said South Africa’s consumer inflation rate was 6.5% in May, while Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, spokeswoman for Numsa, could not immediately comment when contacted.
Eskom workers aren’t allowed to strike because the provision of electricity is considered an essential service. While labour groups on June 28 called for their members to report for duty, the stay away continued at some plants and the utility was forced to double power cuts to prevent a total collapse of the grid.
Meanwhile the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) heard wide-ranging and spirited calls for intervention in response to the Eskom energy crisis, which ranged from the declaration of a state of emergency to immediately moving Eskom from the Department of Public Enterprises to the Department of Energy.
There were a lot of calls made by ANC leaders on how the government should respond to the crisis, and some people felt that there must be a state of emergency on the energy crisis, especially when you consider what this means for townships and other areas,” a well-placed source who attended the meeting.
However, the ANC NEC did not make concrete resolutions on the way forward in the energy crisis gripping South Africa.
“Others believed it was time that the Department of Public Enterprises was finally dismantled, and Eskom be moved to [the Department of] Energy. That is going to be a big debate at our policy conference, I can tell you,” the source said.
At the NEC meeting, Gordhan presented a report on the state of the power grid, which was described as “technical with very few solutions”.
“He made the point that the problems at Eskom [are] very complex, with old power stations dying and the capacity of some power stations being insufficient,” a second source in the meeting said.
Gordhan came under attack in the meeting for not coming up with solutions to the problems and his handling of the situation publicly. He is said to have raised the ire of some NEC members for blaming sabotage for the ongoing crisis, which has led to stage 6 load shedding and unplanned blackouts across the country.