NUM lambasts Eskom's errant attitude

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) notes Eskom ‘s financial results and its bragging that it has lifted its net profit to R12,8 billion rands from last year ‘s R9,5 billion. The money termed profit has been stolen from the poor through massive tariff increases and shortcuts by refusing workers what is due to them.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is still engaged in a bitter fight with Eskom at arbitration level which is due to continue from the 02nd to the 08th of December at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

The NUM appeals to the power parastatal to accede to the demands made by its workforce now that the company has declared huge amounts of money and is considering bonuses for the select few of its executives and board members. The NUM believes that giving bonuses to executives and board members whilst refusing to do the same to the workforce who cannot afford the electricity they help generate signifies moral bankruptcy.

The process of awarding bonuses to the select few whilst making millions of poor people pay huge amounts of money in tariffs and ignoring those at the coalface of power generation is tantamount to theft and corruption.

Meanwhile, the National union of Mineworkers would tomorrow convene an Eskom National Shopsteward Council at the Reef hotel in Johannesburg to pay special attention and focus on the matter and many other issues relating to the parastatal ‘s errant attitude.

Statement issued by Lesiba Seshoka, NUM national spokesman, November 24 2011

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