That Eskom has approached its wage negotiations season with an offer to not increase salaries in 2018 is absolutely the correct position for an organisation with its kind of problems. For many years it has not been generating enough cash to pay salaries and fund its operating needs. Freezing wage increases is just the start of what the state-owned company needs to do, as it borrows money to pay debt and salaries. Hard and more painful decisions have to be taken for Eskom to migrate from living hand-to-mouth to the thriving strategic national asset it can be. These decisions have to be made sooner rather than later. The trade union leaders, their members, management and the government have to get together and agree on ways to save Eskom. The starting point is to agree to assault the inflated cost of running the utility. Today, Eskom employs 47,658 people to generate less than 47,000MW of power. This number excludes the people building the Medupi and Kusile power stations who are empl...
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