Fin24 reports that the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has laid the blame for the protests at power stations that plunged SA into Stage 4 load shedding late last week at Eskom's door.

Speaking on Monday, Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola denied any involvement by the union in planning the protests, but said they were a direct outcome of what she called Eskom management's unwillingness to negotiate wages with organised labour in good faith. Last Friday, Eskom reported that protests at Eskom operations following a deadlock in wage negotiations had escalated from protestors obstructing access to power stations to protestors attacking Eskom employees reporting for duty. Hlubi-Majola said Eskom leadership had to shoulder some responsibility for the disruptions to the entity's operations and added: "What is happening at Eskom is not a Numsa initiative. It is the anger of workers at the hands of the recklessness of Andre De Ruyter and his team for walking out of negotiations. All of the anger that you are seeing is as a result of Eskom, and unions have nothing to do with it." Eskom management on Friday denied walking out of wage talks. Instead, Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer said that the entity had tabled its final offer of a 5% wage increase, and certain quarters of organised labour had indicated that they would not accept it. The other unions in the now-deadlocked wage talks, namely the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Solidarity, have denied involvement in the protests and condemned any action that disrupted Eskom's operations. Meantime, Eskom has secured a court order against the protest action and has applied to the CCMA for assistance in breaking the deadlock and ending the protest disruptions.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Khulekani Magubane at Fin24

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