Financial Mail reports that labour analyst Mamokgethi Molopyane says the new CEO of Eskom, André de Ruyter, is stepping into a minefield and, while organised labour has been subdued in recent months as the operational crisis at the utility escalated, as tough reform looms it is likely to spring into action.
It is inevitable that the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) will play a key role in what unfolds at Eskom. Numsa has indeed indicated it will join forces with NUM to fight attempts to privatise Eskom and other state-owned enterprises. "I didn’t expect either of the unions to accept the CEO. He has been brought in to make the organisation leaner and more efficient and that is most likely going to affect the workers," Molopyane noted. "Either they will try to outdo each other, or they may, for the moment, even work together," he added. "Whichever way you look at it, it doesn’t really bode well for De Ruyter. He is always going to be on a collision course with the unions. He has to play it very smart," Molopyane pointed out. The unions came out fighting when it was announced that de Ruyter would be the new CEO. Numsa decried De Ruyter as a "fake specialist" appointed for his "cold-blooded business practices which attack labour in particular". It commented further: "We see his appointment as nothing but a vehicle to drive the privatisation, unbundling and the disposal of Eskom’s assets as well as the retrenchment of workers.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lisa Steyn and Warren Thompson at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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