BL Premium reports that as SA remains saddled with stage 4 and stage 6 load-shedding, high-level interventions are under way to ensure workers who have started to return after having embarked on an illegal and violent strike at Eskom will be satisfied with a revised wage offer expected to be tabled on Friday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa intervened on Tuesday to resolve the impasse in wage talks. This was after Eskom announced that sabotage and intimidation by striking workers resulted in a 90% stayaway at many power plants. Ramaphosa, who arrived back in SA after the Group of Seven summit in Germany on Tuesday morning, received an immediate briefing from public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, who was asked to do what was needed to ensure power was restored immediately. It is also understood that Ramaphosa held a bilateral meeting with Gordhan and Eskom management on how the government could improve the 4%-5.3% wage increase offer. Unions are demanding between 10% and 12%. Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the president was categoric that load-shedding could not continue unabated and the strike at Eskom was illegal. Magwenya added that Ramaphosa was deeply concerned by the acts of sabotage and intimidation, which included petrol bombs, to try to stop all work at Eskom in demand for a high wage. “It is tragic that union leaders are engaging in an approach that ultimately will have a devastating impact on workers. Short-term gains are not worth losing an entire job a few months later,” Magwenya said. He went on to warn: “Action on intimidation is extremely important. Eskom needs the support of law-enforcement agencies. If it is allowed to continue, it will become a norm.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Hajra Omarjee & Denene Erasmus at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
- Read too, Load shedding crisis: UDM wants parliamentary debate, DA blames government and Gordhan, at News24
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page