Johannesburg - Pressure for power utility Eskom to finish its mega projects on time had left it vulnerable to blackmail by workers, who were now making exorbitant demands, labour experts said yesterday.
This follows workers at the Medupi power plant construction site striking illegally to press demands for an in-transit allowance on Wednesday morning, which led to the suspension of operations for a day.
The workers demanded the allowance from Eskom contractors, saying these employers had agreed to pay them for the time they spent travelling to work if they commuted for more than an hour a day.
The national sector co-ordinator for basic metals and energy at the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), Stephen Nhlapo, said yesterday that the strike was not orchestrated by the trade unions representing Eskom workers. Workers had downed tools on their own initiative after they received a communiqué two days before pay day informing them that the in-transit allowance would not be paid.
Dunstan Farrell, a labour lawyer at Farrell Attorneys, said yesterday that the demand for such an allowance was “unreasonable and not sensible”.
“Workers believe they have leverage over Eskom because Eskom has pressure to get Medupi up and running as soon as possible. This demonstrates lack of leadership and lack of discipline and it’s really putting a damper on the economy,” Farrell said.
After negotiations on the matter yesterday, Numsa said it had agreed with Eskom that the Medupi site would open on Tuesday next week.
Farrell said it was understood that workers were under pressure financially but argued that labour needed to make sensible demands if the country were to remain competitive.
Azar Jammine, the chief economist at Econometrix, said the unreasonable demands by labour were linked to the competition that existed between the trade unions representing workers, particularly Numsa and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
“They want to outdo each other and that is not conducive towards economic growth and jobs sustainability, let alone creating new jobs,” he said.
Jammine said organised labour had been making out-of-reach demands for the past few years but in the Eskom situation, workers were using their power of being in high demand to hold the utility and its contractors to ransom.
“Eskom has already delayed Medupi by one and a half years from the initial date of commissioning and workers know they’ll do anything to avoid disrupting production. It’s a very unfortunate situation,” he said.
NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said it was disappointing to see people blaming the problems on labour, saying that the contractors and Eskom were to blame for failing to stick to their commitments and stabilising the situation at Medupi.
“It’s quite possible that the workers are using the urgency to commission Medupi as their bargaining advantage. They might be wrong in doing so but I don’t think they have any other option because Eskom has declared its services as essential. Eskom has been holding workers to ransom and now workers are doing the same because they have a chance,” Seshoka said.
He did not see the in-transit allowance demand as unreasonable as workers were pressured by rising living costs. - Business Report