NUMSA REFUSES TO SIGN A WAGE AGREEMENT WITH ESKOM!
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) refuses to sign a collective bargaining agreement with ESKOM, since we rejected their racialised, unequal and poverty wage offer.
We call on ESKOM Board to apply cool-heads by providing decisive leadership in resolving the wage impasse in the interest of our members and the country at large.
We have been engaged in protracted wage negotiations since April 19, 2011 - until- August 2, 2011, with the intransigent ESKOM management for wage demands for 2011 as per recognition agreements in line with the Labour Relations Act (LRA). Throughout these negotiations ESKOM has been bullying us by imposing a wage settlement that is far-fetched from our member's demands. This clearly demonstrated that ESKOM was not willing to negotiate in good faith from the start of the negotiations.
The so-called final offer of 7% by ESKOM is a spit on the face of the workers in their quest to close the apartheid wage gap.
This paltry 7% increase is a sad indictment to the exploited workers at ESKOM who continue to receive racialised, unequal and poverty inflated wages.
ESKOM as a strategic entity of the democratic and peoples government, it should be obliged to give workers decent wages, given the ANC's electoral commitments to create decent work opportunities or driving a decent work agenda. As NUMSA we hold the view that the decent work agenda should be buttressed with a decent pay agenda given the economic burdens faced by the workers as a result of grinding poverty, mass unemployment, escalating cost of basic amenities and widening income inequalities in South Africa today.
As NUMSA we believe that ESKOM should be engaging these negotiations with an open mind and serious considerations of workers plight and sufferings. We are all aware that ESKOM has received huge financial injections over the past years, such as a staggering World Bank loan of R28 billion, and R21 billion loans from the African Development Bank respectively. Therefore cool-heads and soberness from the ESKOM Board of Directors should be a prerequisite by using the utility's massive capital injection towards eliminating the colonial and apartheid income inequalities within ESKOM geared towards improving the conditions of the overwhelming majority of our people in particular Black African working class.
Our demands to ESKOM are realistic and achievable understanding that ESKOM is a monopoly, and continuously pay themselves excessive salaries above inflation and huge bonuses.
This is what ESKOM have rejected;
· A 13% wage increment across the board;
· A six (6) months paid maternity leave;
· A R3500 Housing Allowance increase;
· A prohibition and banning of labour brokers, and permanent employment of all workers working currently employed by labour brokers
· A 80% employer contribution to the Medical Aid; and
· A one (1) year collective bargaining agreement.
Our demands are consistent with our federation's - COSATU - resolve to mobilise workers, the unorganised and the unemployed for a Living Wage struggle as part of resolving the mass poverty, squalor, deepening inequalities as mirrored by inferior conditions endured by workers in townships, villages and squatter camps.
We call on ESKOM to re-negotiate in good faith and desist from applying malodorous arrogance which will not resolve workers demands. We want to caution ESKOM that we are not a striking frenzy union, but if it comes to the push, we will not hesitate to mobilise our members for an industrial action. If ESKOM thinks that they will hamstring us on the Minimum Services Agreement (MSA) by using the bourgeois courts to muzzle our members not to the strike, ESKOM will be fooling itself and behaving in a childish manner.
As NUMSA we want to give ESKOM a free reminder that a precedent has been set already by the Constitutional Court (ConCourt), whereby police have a right to embark on an industrial action, since not all the police force is an essential service.
Our members are anxious to use their mobilisational power to withhold the utility's ‘power' until their demands are met
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA national spokesperson, August 29 2011
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
