On Wednesday, 23 May 2018 Political Analysis South Africa’s Thando Maeko spoke to Vusi Manana, who is the NUM representative at Eskom KwaZulu-Natal.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in KwaZulu-Natal has announced that it will embark on a protest next month after Eskom offered a wage increase of 0% during the first round of negotiations earlier this week. Manana says the offer placed on the table by Eskom demonstrates that the power utility does not care about its workers.
Eskom, a state-owned company, argues that it is going through financial difficulties that would make it difficult to increase the salaries. Manana, however, maintains that workers should not be made to bear the brunt of financial mismanagement at Eskom, and should be paid what is due to them.
“We told them straight, that you can’t make us pay for mistakes of you as executives…and you want us to suffer for that,” he said.
Listen to the audio below for the full interview.
