Electricity production has been hit by Thursday’s protest action against a wage freeze imposed by Eskom management‚ a National Union of Mineworkers official told members.
Keagile Pholoba‚ a NUM full-time shop steward‚ was briefin thousands of workers who have gathered outside Eskom headquarters at Megawatt Park in Johannesburg about the impact of the protest action‚ particularly in Mpumalanga.
“All units are down at Arnot (coal-fired power station)‚ just one is left. There is no coal on top of that. Hendrina is running on two units. Kendel is running on one unit. (In) the new power station which is Kusile‚ all units are red. Duvha station has only two units. Komati‚ the smallest power station‚ is running with one unit…‚” said Pholoba.
NUM and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA are fuming after Eskom came to the negotiation table with a zero percent wage offer. The unions want a double-digit increase for their members.
Leadership of NUM and Numsa are expected to address the workers later in the day. A memorandum of demands will also be handed to Eskom management.
Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe said earlier on Thursday that “intimidation and road blockades are rife at most of Eskom’s power stations and regional offices this morning‚ a move that might compromise Eskom’s ability to keep the lights on. Meanwhile‚ power supply has just been ‘mysteriously’ cut off at Eskom head office Megawatt Park.”
#PowerUpdate: Intimidation and road blockades are rife at most of Eskom's power stations and regional offices this morning, a move that might compromise Eskom's ability to keep the lights on. Eskom will continue to provide regular updates on various media platforms. pic.twitter.com/4mEdhM3ls9
— Khulu Phasiwe (@KhuluPhasiwe) June 14, 2018
Residents of the posh suburb of Rivonia as well as Marlboro Gardens complained on social media that they had been without power since about 10am. It is not clear as yet if this is related to the Eskom workers protest‚ as frequent outages have been experienced by customers of City Power in Johannesburg this year.
The entity has previously blamed technical problems on ageing equipment‚ planned maintenance and cable theft for the outages. Overnight and this morning again‚ multiple suburbs in the city were in the dark. See
https://twitter.com/citypowerjhb?lang=en
By: Penwell Dlamini – TimesLIVE
Source: TMG Digital.
