JOHANNESBURG - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) on Thursday threatened to go on a massive strike at Eskom over the ongoing wage dispute, saying that the power utility was negotiating in bad faith.
This, as Numsa met with Eskom on Wednesday to respond to the latest wage offer made by Eskom after it took it to its members for ratification following numerous rounds of negotiations as wage talks have deadlocked.
Irvin Jim, Numsa general-secretary, said that Eskom management wants to take disciplinary action and dismiss many of the union members for their demonstrations and protests, which has dented talks when they were edging closer to reaching settlement on all wage related issues.
"Numsa is very clear that we do not promote any form of misconduct by our members, but we remain open to the use of corrective disciplinary measures if there is real evidence of misconduct. This is the proper course following a negotiated process.
"We will not give Eskom license to get rid of our members, which is clearly a covert strategy to fulfill an agenda from Eskom to get rid of a large number of workers. We are warning Eskom management, the board and government as the shareholder that if they do not withdraw this threat, they leave us with no choice but to exercise our constitutional right to engage in protected strike action in defense of jobs as a last resort."