EDITORIAL: Unions’ battle for relevance drives SA to the brink
The current spat between Eskom and the unions was inevitable, given that the utility was always going to have to face the music for its awful financial decisions
The raison d’être for trade unions is to fight for higher wages and better working conditions. That being the case, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that union leaders are prone to going to the negotiating table with unrealistic wage demands. It has almost become a badge of honour for them — the more ridiculous the demand, the better.This is the situation playing out at Eskom. The utility is financially embarrassed, which is why it offered no pay increase to staff. But three unions — the National Union of Mineworkers, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA and Solidarity — are locked in a battle to extract annual salary increases of between 9% and 15% from Eskom.The problem is that even the bottom of that range (9%) is double the inflation rate. But that doesn’t seem to bother the representatives of Eskom’s 47,658 employees. That Eskom does not have a cent to its name to afford these demands seems just as inconsequential to the unions.Of course, it is true that Eskom’s staff by the...
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