After an intervention of the Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan on Friday where he convened a meeting between the Eskom board and management and the labour unions involved in the employee wage negotiations NUM, NUMSA and Solidarity which saw the salary negotiations being resumed on Tuesday 19 June 2018.
The Power utility Eskom and labour unions agreed to go back to the negotiation table to bring an end to protest action which disrupted the supply of electricity and led to the weekend of load shedding. Previously Eskom and the unions had dead logged on 0% wage increase offered by Eskom while the unions demanded 15%, through the intervention of Public Enterprise Minister in order to normalize operations and to restore normal production and ensuring the security of electricity supply, the negotiations on Tuesday Eskom revised their offer of 0% to 4.7% after a whole day of deliberations even though none of the board members of Eskom present in the negotiations.
Now it is up to the labour unions the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) to report back to their members the outcomes of the negotiations and get a clear mandate on the way forward on the other hand labour union Solidarity who represent skilled workers in Eskom whose majority are white employees said are ready to take the offer from Eskom.
