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Eskom workers on strike

Johannesburg – The largest trade union represented at electricity supplier Eskom said on Tuesday it had embarked on an unprotected strike to force the company to settle its demand for a R5 000 monthly housing allowance.

"Our members went on strike from 05:00 this morning [Tuesday]," National Union of Mineworkers (Num) spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka told Fin24.com. "If you visited the power stations you would have seen what I am talking about. It is not only the generation unit that is on strike, [it's] the whole of Eskom."

That is despite the power utility's insistence on Monday that the parties had agreed to continue negotiating through its central bargaining forum.

Erica Johnson, Eskom's chief officer for customer network business, told the media on Monday no strike action would take place.

"In any event, according to the law Eskom is an essential services company and there can be no strike," said Johnson. "The parties are negotiating and there is no strike planned."

Contacted on Tuesday, Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger said as far as the group was aware that was still the case. There had been no formal notification of a strike by any trade union. Num is Eskom's majority union, representing over 16 000 of the total 25 000-strong workforce.

However, Seshoka said Num's members would not return to work until Eskom agreed to its demand of a monthly R5 000 housing allowance across the board.

"That is an issue that should have been settled last year, but Eskom is just not commenting on the housing allowance," said Seshoka. "For a full year now it has been sending its representatives with no mandate."

According to Num, the housing allowance issue has been dragging for 16 years. "We can't negotiate for that long," Seshoka said.

Trade union Solidarity, the second-biggest union at Eskom, said it was aware of the Num strike, but its members are not participating. "We want to give the negotiating process a chance and since Eskom is an essential services company the strike is not protected," said Solidarity's Gideon du Plessis.

Num is also adamant it will not get involved in the current year's wage negotiations until Eskom settles the outstanding issue from last year. "This has nothing with the 2010 bargaining round. We'll go to that after the resolution of the current one," said Seshoka. The union has not tabled any wage increase demands, but Seshoka confirmed that when those negotiations start it will demand an 18% hike across the board.

Those negotiations are set to open on Wednesday.

Fin24.com has also been reliably informed that Eskom approached the courts with a view to obtaining an interdict against the strike on Tuesday afternoon, a tactic Num branded an apartheid ploy.

"We'll be marching to Eskom's offices tomorrow to deliver a memorandum, but Eskom has denied us permission to march in their grounds," said Seshoka. Although he admitted the strike was unprotected, he said both Eskom and the union were not complying with the law.

"They must say which employees are not eligible to strike, not just everybody that works for Eskom."

 
- Fin24.com 
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