Eskom has denied reports that it plans to retrench workers, but says its workforce will decrease because of “natural attrition.”
Eskom Spokesperson, Khulu Phasiwe says that the power utility has not made any pronouncements about retrenchments.
“What I’ve said is that Eskom will have a reduction in staff numbers for a period of time but that will happen through natural attrition where people resign or retire and the some of those positions will be frozen,” he said.
Phasiwe’s comments come after a statement released on 4 April 2018 by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) condemning the alleged lobbying by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) pressuring Eskom to retrench workers.
“We want to caution the state-owned power utility to not succumb to toxic pressure by these lobbying groups because that will muddy the waters and poison relations with the trade unions,” the statement said.
Cosatu added, “we will not entertain any talk of retrenchments at Eskom.”
Phasiwe refuted these claims saying that although the power utility will lose some of its workforce, it will not be due to retrenchments.
“Over the last year Eskom has lost 4% of its staff complement…based on that the people at HR extrapolated 4% over the five year period starting from 2017 up until 2022 and then they came to the conclusion that if we lose 4% we are likely to have a reduction of 10 000 workers but none of them would have left Eskom because they have been retrenched,” he said.
“We are able to work within the numbers that we have now but over a period of time some of the positions will be phased out because of the current financial difficulties that the company faces,” Phasiwe added.
