Beleaguered power utility Eskom, which is struggling to provide energy to power one of Africa’s largest economies, is facing stiff demands for above-inflation wage increases by labour unions.
Eskom, which has debt of more than R420bn, has been implementing load-shedding — which has slowed economic growth and led to job losses — to prevent the national grid from a total collapse. It relies on government bailouts to keep operating.
The government has said it will provide Eskom with debt relief of R254bn over the next three years and will take over up to R70bn of the utility’s debt portfolio in 2025/26. Eskom will get advances of R78bn in 2023/24, R66bn in 2024/25 and R40bn in 2025/26.
In a list of demands, which Business Day has seen, addressed to Thulane Ngele, Eskom’s GM for people’s relations, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary William Mabapa said the Cosatu affiliate was demanding a 15% wage increase for the 2023/24 financial year.
Solidarity’s sector co-ordinator, Tommy Wedderspoon, said its members were demanding a wage increase of 3% above the average inflation rate. The country’s average inflation rate was 6.9% in 2022, with the Reserve Bank projecting it will ease to 6% for 2023.
In 2021, NUM and Solidarity demanded pay hikes of 15% and 9% respectively, but Eskom rejected the unions’ demands and unilaterally implemented a 1.5% wage increase, citing a lack of funds.
In July 2022, the parties signed a 7% across-the-board wage deal, which added R1bn to Eskom’s salary bill, and ended a weeklong wildcat strike that deepened the electricity supply crisis.
The wage deal, which Eskom said was unaffordable, also caused about 28,374 Eskom employees in the bargaining unit to receive a R400 increase of the housing allowance.
NUM’s demands include that housing allowance be increased to R7,000; that employees be allowed to buy houses anywhere in SA; and that the company contribution to medical aid be 80%, with employees paying 20%.
It is also demanding a cellphone allowance of R1,000; R1,500 electricity allowance; R5,000 rural allowance; four weeks’ paternity leave; truck driver allowance of R1,000; that all trainees be absorbed into the business; and that people retiring at 60 years be allowed to leave with no penalties.
Mabapa stated in the letter to Ngele the union reserved the right to “amend, review or withdraw any demand, influenced by the negotiations process but largely directed by our members before or during negotiations”.
Solidarity wants the housing allowance to be increased by 5%.
“Solidarity also reserves its right to support any other demand submitted by the other participating trade unions,” Wedderspoon said.
Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said the employer would respond formally to the unions’ demands when wage talks began at the central bargaining forum on Wednesday.
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