Solidarity welcomes CCMA ruling in Eskom dispute

South African trade union Solidarity has welcomed the CCMA’s recent ruling in its favour in a dispute with power producer Eskom over the latter’s amendment to conditions of service. Photo: File

South African trade union Solidarity has welcomed the CCMA’s recent ruling in its favour in a dispute with power producer Eskom over the latter’s amendment to conditions of service. Photo: File

Published Dec 30, 2020

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DURBAN - South African trade union Solidarity has welcomed the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) recent ruling in its favour in a dispute with power producer Eskom over the latter’s amendment to conditions of service.

Under the ruling Eskom must pay all accrued and outstanding fees that are due to Eskom employees as per their original conditions of service. The conditions of service as per the original employment contracts must also be reinstated immediately.

Coordinator for the sector at Electrical sector at Solidarity Tommy Wedderspoon said that they welcomed the ruling and the fact that Eskom was now forced to take responsibility for its actions, under whom Eskom matters resort.

“It would appear as if major companies and institutions such as Eskom believe that by making changes to certain conditions of service their employees and trade unions would not notice it, and that they would thus be able to get away with such unlawful action. However, we have proven that every condition of service, whether it is rather insignificant in nature or of real significance, is important, and unlawful changes to it will not be tolerated,” said Wedderspoon.

Solidarity declared a dispute and approached the CCMA after Eskom changed its employees’ conditions of service in November 2017 without having followed the required consultation process. Some of these amended conditions of service specifically pertained to medical benefits and the education of employees’ children, the financial support for which had been withdrawn. The ruling in favour of Solidarity was given earlier this month.

Wedderspoon said that Solidarity could not allow employers to amend the conditions of service of their employees without following the required consultation processes.

“We persevered and kept fighting until justice was done. We are delighted that this ruling once again proves that employers do not have the right to do as they please, exploiting innocent workers in the process,” Wedderspoon said.

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