NUMSA STATEMENT ON MEDUPI

25 March 2015

Earlier today, Wednesday 25 March 2015, about 21 000 workers, majority belonging to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) embarked on a protest action to highlight their plight or grievances at Medupi Power Station, Lephalale, Limpopo province.

Today's action has resulted into the total closure of the Medupi Power station, as a direct response by Eskom, to quell workers action. A Memorandum of Demands was submitted to Eskom by our members.

Numsa is convinced that the workers reasonable demands can be resolved by Eskom, without any undue disruption of work. Already these workers have delivered on their mandate in building a Power Station, so that it can provide the necessary and much needed power to the national grid.

This was done in the best interest of our ailing economy and poor consumers, amidst the scandalous load-shedding that has led to our country being down-graded by rating agencies and neoliberal market institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

These are the key demands by workers;

Completion bonus should be given to all workers, not only to senior Managers;

Retrenchments of workers should be halted with immediate effect; and

An end to racialised evictions of workers from their subsidised accommodation.

We call on Eskom to respond to the demands of workers. The failure by Eskom to respond to these genuine and legitimate demands of workers, will force the union to escalate its organisational muscle and power until these demands are met. We will be compelled to pull-out our members into a full blown action, including workers at Kusile Power Station, in Mpumalanga.

Statement issued by Steve Nhlapo, Head of Collective Bargaining: NUMSA, March 25 2015

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