THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have dismissed media reports stating that their members have rejected Eskom’s latest proposal of a 7% wage increase.
The two unions have also denied reports that they were part of plans to hold a protest at Eskom’s Megawatt Park headquarters in Joburg on Friday.
This after Fin24 reported that NUMSA and NUM members were against the proposal based on a mass distributed letter from one branch.
The online publication reported that the two unions were planning to embark on a further protest action against the embattled power utility.
But NUMSA and NUM have both rejected the reports, saying they were false and reckless.
“Numsa and NUM will be engaging Eskom in the Central Bargaining Forum on Friday July 2022 regarding the proposal which Eskom has tabled. Any reports or claims in the media suggesting that we have either accepted or rejected an offer at Eskom are false. We call on media houses to be responsible in their reporting. When they publish fake news it can have a very detrimental impact on the negotiations process,” the unions said in a statement.
NUMSA said in a tweet: “We have noted a very reckless report published by @Fin24 claiming that workers at #Eskom have rejected the wage offer. We demand that FIN24 delete this story IMMEDIATELY. IT IS FALSE! The journalist published without bothering to confirm with the union.”
NUMSA, NUM and Solidarity are expected to return to wage talks at the Central Bargaining Forum (CBF) on Friday.
Eskom is offering workers a 7% wage increase to end an impasse that plunged South Africa into its worst blackouts since 2019.
The offer is for a year, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.
The proposed pay rise is on a sliding scale with higher earners receiving slightly less, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.
Eskom, which has R396 billion of debt and survives on government bailouts, raised its offer to break a deadlock that led the utility to cut enough power to supply four million South African homes.
The stalled negotiations prompted workers to go on a rampage, torching homes of senior officials and blocking entry into power plants, stymieing electricity generation.
Eskom, which has 42,000 employees, had made an offer of an increase of as much as 5.3% before the call by unions to stay away from work.
The protests prompted Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, who oversees the company and other state-owned groups, to brief the media where he showed photos of the violent attacks by workers.
The utility’s constrained financial situation means Eskom would ‘have to find savings somewhere else’ in order to make a higher offer, Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter said in a briefing on Tuesday.
NUMSA initially demanded 15% across the board at the start of the wage tale but revised their demand downward to 12%.
NUM’s wage demands currently stands at 10%.
Solidarity, which condemned the protests and was not involved in the joint statement, made a demand of 5.9%.
Eskom initially made a zero percent offer, which went up to 5% during talks.
Following Gordhan’s intervention, this offer was revised upward again to 7%.
INSIDE POLITICS with further reporting by Bloomberg.
