Revival of Eskom, union talks raise hopes of end to ‘darkness’

THE threat of load shedding remains as trade unions, power utility Eskom and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan prepare to resume wage negotiations on Tuesday.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and Solidarity downed tools at Eskom and threatened a national shutdown if their demand for a salary hike wasn’t met.

Eskom had offered workers a 0% increase. The industrial action led to stage one load shedding on Thursday and Friday evening, and yesterday stage two was effected.

On Thursday, however, the Labour Court granted Eskom an interdict against the strike which prevented the unions from embarking on any further strikes, pickets, gatherings or marches.

NUM general secretary David Sipunzi said it had met Gordhan and the Eskom board on Friday. It was agreed that negotiations should reopen with Eskom employees still demanding a 15% wage increase.

“The negotiating team will meet Eskom on Tuesday,” he said.

Late yesterday, Eskom remained on high alert, with the power utility tweeting: “Acts of intimidation and sabotage continue today at some of Eskom’s power stations, a move that has begun to threaten the security of power supply. Eskom will continue to provide regular updates about the state of the power system through various media platforms.”

Energy expert Chris Yelland said the country was stuck in an archaic way of approaching wage negotiations. “This traditional way of negotiating is damaging to the whole country and they are trapped in the past.”

Yelland welcomed Gordhan’s intervention which had “reduced the threats of sabotage and violence”.

“He is a former finance minister and he understands the damage that is being done to the economy.”

The Durban Chamber of Commerce said load shedding would affect the productivity of businesses around the city.

Chamber president Musa Makhunga said it had received a number of complaints since Friday, when Eskom announced load shedding was back. South Africa has been free of load shedding for several years and as recently as the last month, the power utility announced there would be no load shedding this year.

Makhunga said the chamber was hopeful that by returning to the negotiating table with unions, further blackouts could be averted. “Eskom is going back to the negotiating table and as business, we hope they can find a way forward,” said Makhunga.

In the interim, Makhunga encouraged businesses to go back to their old load-shedding contingency plans of using back-up generators and alternative energy sources while there was load shedding.

Gordon Michael of the Blue Zoo restaurant in Mitchell Park, said they had experienced two hours of outage during their busy Friday afternoon.

While they have a small back-up generator, it was only able to keep half the restaurant going. “We can’t make toasted sandwiches, milkshakes or coffee but we can do teas,” she said.