Eskom says the latest wage offer to workers is going to cost the power utility over a billion rand.
The leadership of NUMSA, NUM and Solidarity signed Eskom’s seven percent wage offer which will be implemented across the board from the first of this month.
The agreement also includes the reinstatement of changes to conditions of service and a R400 increase to the housing allowance.
Human Resources Executive at Eskom Elsie Pule explains, “I think from an Eskom point of view, these were very prolonged engagements, they were not easy. I must put it on record that the offer that we signed today, we actually can’t afford it as an organisation. We need to make plans to find additional money to fund this agreement. The impact on our wage bill is in access of a billion.”
Unions update
NUM and NUMSA convened a shop steward council meeting in Sandton, north of Johannesburg on Tuesday morning where the offer was discussed and accepted.
Unions update the media on wage agreement:
NUM Secretary General William Mabapa explains.
“We have been given a mandate, we’ll be meeting with Eskom after lunch time. Let me just confirm that we are going to sign, we’ve got a mandate to sign. I wish and hope that today we’ll settle and that workers go back to work and they must tell us and confirm that load shedding isn’t it, they said load shedding is about the strike. Now the unprotected strike will end, that mean the load shedding is going to stop, because the load shedding is going to continue, they must explain to us why there’s still load shedding.”
