ADVERTISEMENT

Eskom Union to Ramaphosa: No Job Cuts, No Split, Fire the Board

Eskom Union to Ramaphosa: No Job Cuts, No Split, Fire the Board

(Bloomberg) -- The National Union of Mineworkers, a group co-founded by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, is against any plan to split the country’s indebted power utility because it will result in job losses.

There is “uncertainty” rather than job security at Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., NUM President Joseph Montisetse said Wednesday in an interview at his office in Johannesburg. The union, which has about 15,000 members at Eskom, says the company could return to profit by investing in coal mining, exporting the fuel and selling more electricity to South Africa’s neighbors.

Ramaphosa is due to deliver his State of the Nation address Thursday and is expected to unveil new measures to help Eskom. The president announced the plan to divide the company into generation, transmission and distribution units in February. He also vowed to avoid cutting jobs, despite Eskom having about 47,000 workers, a figure the World Bank has said is 66% too high, and debt of at least 440 billion rand ($30 billion).

NUM is prepared to hear what Ramaphosa has to say in his speech, but so far “we are not happy with what the president has promised’’ in terms of job security, Montisetse said.

“We don’t believe the unbundling can be a cure for this disease,’’ he said. NUM wants a total bailout for the utility and a new board in order to make the business profitable again, he said.

While Eskom last year said it would set a budget to return to a partial investment in coal mining, a third of the utility’s plants that burn the fuel will be at the end of their lifespan by 2023.

Montisetse said the stations can be rebuilt in order to extend their lives. “We can’t agree for our members to be cut from work,” he said. “We believe that we need a credible management to hire even more people.”

--With assistance from Antony Sguazzin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Burkhardt in Johannesburg at pburkhardt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Liezel Hill, Vernon Wessels

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.