Numsa accuses Eskom of coming to wage talks unprepared

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has accused Eskom’s management of being unprepared for wage negotiations with labour unions.

Eskom wage talks

Eskom management met with unions on Wednesday at the Central Bargaining Forum (CBF) in Johannesburg for the first day of wage talks.

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The power utility’s main unions, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Numsa, and Solidarity have submitted their wage demands.

NUM and Numsa are both demanding a 15% salary increase across the board, along with other benefits. Solidarity wants an across-the-board salary increase of the average Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the 12 months prior to the salary increase, plus an additional 3%.

Eskom offers 3.75% wage increase

According to Numsa, Eskom’s management came unprepared for the wage negotiations and apparently failed to present written submissions to the CBF.

The union’s national spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said the wage talks were supposed to start at 9 am on Wednesday but ended up starting at 12:45 pm because Eskom needed time to write its submissions so that it could be shared with all parties.

Hlubi-Majola said Eskom also did not respond to unions’ demands by stating whether it can afford them or not.

She said the only demand that Eskom’s management responded to was to inform union representatives that they want a one-year agreement, and that they are only offering a 3.75% wage increase.

“We condemn Eskom for their unprofessionalism and also for their frequent delay tactics. This is not how the executive management of a state-owned enterprise 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 last week Thursday 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,” Hlubi-Majola said in a statement.

Load shedding

Numsa also denied some media reports that the higher stages of load shedding currently being implemented by Eskom were due to the wage talks.

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Hlubi-Majola blamed “right-wing publications” for promoting this narrative.

“We are experiencing load shedding because Eskom to date has shutdown units at coal-fired power stations… At the same time, load shedding has been happening persistently for years, whether we are engaged in wage negotiations or not.

“Last year workers picketed for two days during wage talks which exacerbated the outages, their picket did not cause the outages.”

She also rejected reports that workers at Eskom earn generous packages, saying the true cost drivers at the utility were Independent Power Producers (IPPs), coal costs, and Diesel Open Cycle Gas Turbines costs.

“The beneficiaries of these contracts are companies from the private sector. In comparison, workers’ wages and benefits have remained flat over the last six years.

“The total cost of the wage bill at Eskom, including the generous packages of the executive management has remained flat and has not exceeded R33 billion since the 2016/2017 financial year till financial year 2021/2022, while Primary Energy cost (Coal, IPPs, Diesel Open Cycle Gas Turbines) ballooned from R83 billion in 2016/2017 to R132 billion in 2021/2022.”

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