The Eskom wage negotiations will resume in Johannesburg on Thursday, after the unions rejected Eskom’s latest offer.
The power utility is offering a five percent wage hike for this year, and inflation linked increases of between zero-point-six and zero- point- seven percent for the next four years.
The three major unions, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, National Union of Mineworkers and Solidarity are demanding a nine percent increase for this year, eight-point- six percent for next year and eight -point- 5 percent for 2020. Unions NUM and NUMSA were initially demanding a fifteen percent wage hike.
“We called on them to be sober and give their final offer which we can be able to consider. We had views on how we can move and not to move. But we wanted Eskom to be serious, we understand this to be negotiations. But Eskom has not presented an offer that is worth shifting from our own positions” says Numsa’s General Secretary Irvin Jim.
