Moneyweb writes that in the midst of last week’s turmoil over Eskom 0% wage increase stance, economist Mike Schüssler angered unions representing Eskom workers when he tweeted that the average pay per employee at Eskom was R798,000 per year.  

In an article discussing Eskom’s unsustainable wage bill, Nedbank CEO Group Mike Brown quoted a number of R770,000 per annum.  The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) angrily hit back.  Now, a confidential document obtained by Moneyweb, sets out exactly what the 37,000 workers in the Eskom bargaining unit earn.  They fall into 10 salary bands, with the lowest earners earning R135,390 per annum (R11,282 per month) and the highest R595,410 per annum (R49,617 a month).  The lowest scale, T04, refers to general labourers, who earn between R11,282 and R16,915 per month.  Clearly, the majority of Eskom workers do not earn Schüssler’s average of R798,000 per person per year or Brown’s R770,000.  But, union Numsa’s claim that the average employee earns R135,000 per year is also incorrect.  In assessing the case of the Eskom workers, it also has to be noted that expenditure on bonuses almost doubled to R4.2 billion last year.  In fact, in July last year almost all Eskom staff got performance bonuses at an average of R88,883 per employee, although averages do not show whether the members of the bargaining unit got their ‘fair share’ or not.

Read this informative report by Antoinette Slabbert, with a table of salary scales, in full at Moneyweb

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page