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 Blackouts hit pay packets
    January 23 2008 at 01:46PM Get IOL on your
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By Moses Mdewu Mackay, Henri du Plessis and Niemah Davids

The nationwide power cuts are costing workers income, as companies are forced to adjust their shift and working hours.




Unions are in talks with about 500 companies in the Western Cape seeking to change members' working hours to shift their employers' electricity demand to off-peak hours.

Many companies have already restructured shifts, sending employees home during load-shedding, and devised plans to pay for hours worked.

In a statement sent to employers on Tuesday, the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) recommended that managements should pay workers for a minimum of four hours if they were forced to send them home due to power cuts.
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This course of action was prompted by a recent agreement between employers and unions at the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council dealing with load-shedding.

It was agreed that if Eskom cut power and managements of companies decided to send employees home, employees should be paid for a minimum of four hours' work.

It was also agreed that managements were unable to give the required two days' notice in order to implement short-time working under Section 7 of the Main Agreement, due to the fact that power failures threw up unforeseen contingencies.

Should managements require employees to remain at work until the power supply was restored, they will still be credited with a full shift.

When employees have worked for two hours before power is cut and is unlikely to be restored, and management decides to send them home, they should be paid for four hours.

The agreement stipulates that if employees have clocked in and worked six hours by the time the power supply is cut off and is unlikely to be restored, forcing managements to send employees home, then they should be paid for six hours.

If employees have clocked in and worked three hours before the power supply is cut off for two hours, they will resume work when power is switched back on. Then they should be paid for a full shift.

On Wednesday morning the Eskom website indicated that Stage 2 load-shedding was in progress. This means two to three outages a day.

A radical plan, which will see the restructuring of the working hours of more than 500 companies to allow for production to take place during off-peak hours, is in the pipeline to counter the debilitating effects of the power cuts.

The National Union of Metal Workers of SA (Numsa) on Tuesday confirmed that it is in discussions with more than 500 companies in a bid to address disruptions due to power outages.

The plan could see thousands of workers especially in the engineering and motor sector in the Western Cape forced to change their shifts either to start work in the early hours or late in the afternoon.

The so-called "demand diversity" plan was first mooted in a confidential report submitted to the Department of Public Enterprises in July 2006 and lays out a plan of action in the event of an energy crisis.

It calls for the government to encourage "demand diversity" by consumers through flexi-time and changes to holiday arrangements.

Productivity

Numsa provincial organiser Clement Herandien said power cuts had severely affected a large number of companies and efforts were under way to ensure there was a high level of productivity in the workplace.

"Our aim is to agree on restructuring," he told the Cape Argus.

"We would like workers to start working early in the morning while others can begin their shift in the afternoon."

The union was also negotiating with the companies to arrange for transport to take members home at night.

"Power cuts have disrupted many people's lives and have affected the productivity of many companies, because they cannot deliver for their customers."

Herandien said Numsa was insistent on a plan of action as continued power cuts could jeopardise job security for thousands of workers.

On Tuesday power cuts brought businesses in Montague Gardens, one of the city's largest industrial areas, to a standstill for several hours.

The manager of Auto Italia Panel Beaters, Abubakar Samsodien, said there was "absolutely nothing" he could do when there was no power.

"We rely solely on electricity to get the work out."

He said the business had suffered outages almost every day last week.

"If I can't get cars out that means a huge amount of money is lost and that's definitely not good."

He described the Montague Gardens situation as chaotic "robots are out everywhere, it's complete madness".

Joe de Freitas, owner of Manny's Fast Foods, said load-shedding was slowly "killing me".

"We get no notification whatsoever. Why can't they let us know and we will make provisions?"

De Freitas said there had been times in the past week when he had to send staff home early, on half-pay, and was forced to throw food away.

"It's crippling us," he said.

On Monday Eskom chief executive Jacob Maroga disclosed that the parastatal was working on a plan that would see electricity for households and private companies rationed.

"The bottom line is that we are constrained by not having enough power in our reserve margin to meet current demand," Maroga said. - Additional reporting by Andisiwe Makinana

    • This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on January 23, 2008
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