A ray of light that unions abhor

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That’s the situation the Eskom board was always going to find itself in, regardless of its preferred candidate for a new CEO. Now that the government has appointed a seasoned business executive who might just get the electricity provider back on its feet, the unions are panicking. Should Andre de Ruyter restore Eskom to operational health, he may just break the unions’ hegemony and cost them many millions in union dues.

Since they can’t yet find anything wrong with De Ruyter’s business competence, both the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) have united around the only “fault” they can find — that he is white. “Why appoint someone competent, known for getting things done?” they cry. Like all tyrants, they had to find plausible cover for their dislike of capable, upright business people: transformation and BEE. A genuine executive at the helm threatens the income they extract from employees of state-owned entities (SOEs), who pay 1% of their salary for the privilege of carrying a union card.

Irvin Jim, Numsa’s very long-serving leader, told 702 he was tired of seeing white men appointed to positions of responsibility in SA — but couldn’t say who’d be better. NUM says De Ruyter has been brought in to complete the process of privatising Eskom and vows not to assist him in his work.

Strangely, neither union had any problems with the thieves and fraudsters who have been milking SOEs dry for a decade. At SAA, Numsa has been leading a strike against a restructuring that may just buy the bankrupt airline a few more years of breathing space.

When Dudu Myeni and her board were running SAA down, hounding out anyone who wouldn’t soil their hands with corruption, Numsa was happy to sit back and watch the airline brought to its knees — running out of funds to buy fuel or pay the employees it claims, as the majority union, to represent.

I have run out of fingers to count the number of executives who were suspended, fired or simply hounded out under Myeni’s reign of terror. The only constant has been Numsa’s deafening silence since SAA operations began to grind to a virtual halt. Not a word of protest as Myeni and her board lined their pockets at the expense of the airline and its employees.

Now that the board of SAA has given acting CEO Zukisa Ramasia the space to win back control of the company she may just be able to fix, the unions are up in arms, hoping to intimidate management and government.

At Eskom, when Gupta stooges Zola Tsotsi, Ben Ngubane and Zethembe Khoza, with their fellow travellers Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh and Matshela Koko, brought the company to its knees, NUM and Numsa fell into a conspiracy of silence as the company was being carted off to the Saxonwold shebeen.

Fortunately, De Ruyter is strong-willed and won’t allow parasitic union bosses to intimidate him. At Nampak he has done the same and refused to put shareholder dividends ahead of the interests of other stakeholders and the company’s sustainability.

Ironically, if De Ruyter succeeds, the same unions may just benefit if the economy starts growing again and they’re able to notch up more subscription fees.