Eskom Crisis and jobs 28-01-08

 

Eskom crisis and jobs

The Eskom power cuts are already a national embarrassment. The Congress of South African Trade Unions is seriously concerned that the crisis could deepen, as there is now a potential threat to millions of jobs as a result of the continuing power cuts.

The federation insists that employers and government must not make workers pay the price for a crisis for which they are in no way responsible. The unions will oppose any retrenchments. Any layoffs must be negotiated with the relevant unions, the workers must continue to be paid and their jobs must be guaranteed for when normal power supplies are resumed.

There must also be no reduction in wages and benefits. All workers who present themselves for work must be paid according to their contracts of employment. We are particularly worried that many casual workers, including the ‘permanent casuals’, are being sent home without pay for the period during which the power is off. Workers who depend on tips and commissions, despite sectoral determinations forbidding such practices, are extremely vulnerable to this.

COSATU demands that employers desist from such practices, and urges all workers to join a trade union so that we can fight to protect their jobs, negotiate safeguards for their jobs and improve their ages, benefits and working conditions.

COSATU reiterates its view that Eskom is not to blame for the crisis. As President Mbeki has now admitted, and apologised for, Eskom warned the government that it needed money to invest in new power stations, but the government, which was then preparing to sell it off, refused to provide the money. They thus forced Eskom to be inefficient and we are now all paying the price for their blunder.

COSATU fought against privatisation because it would lead to retrenchments, higher tariffs, a slower rollout of power to poor communities and insufficient investment to meet future increased demand for electricity. We insisted that Eskom must be a national service, efficiently providing secure and affordable power to the people and to industry, which could never be achieved by a utility that was motivated instead to maximise its profits.

While we welcome the government’s rejection of the planned privatisation, it is clear now that the present crisis stems from the mistaken belief that Eskom had to be run as if it were a private, profit-driven entity. COSATU has thus sadly been proved right.

Another deplorable feature of capitalist ideology which has resulted from trying to make Eskom a profit-making concern are the huge salaries and bonuses being awarded to senior management, even now that they are imposing such hardship on the people of South Africa. We demand that these be withheld.

We urge the government to provide Eskom with all the funds it needs to restore and expand its service and to implement the plan of action to save electricity and minimise the power cuts until a full supply can be restored.