South\u00a0African state-owned power utility Eskom has raised its salary increase offer to trade unions to 5.5% from the 3.5% it proposed last year, a document seen by Reuters showed, though it remains well below what unions are demanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom has been a long-term drag on\u00a0Africa’s biggest economy through its electricity cuts and financial woes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a sharp improvement in the performance of its coal-fired power stations has allowed it to stop implementing nationwide blackouts. It reported its first full-year profit in eight years last financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The revised wage offer was presented to the three major unions it negotiates with over salaries this week in a second round of pay talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom proposed that the 5.5% pay increase come into effect on July 1, the day after its current three-year wage deal expires, the document showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The offer includes adjustments to other benefits, such as housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Eskom spokesperson confirmed the utility’s latest salary offer was 5.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unions are seeking pay hikes of up to 15%, far above\u00a0South\u00a0Africa’s annual inflation rate, which stood at 3.6% in December and which the central bank thinks may have peaked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A third round of wage negotiations is scheduled to take place in February, said Khangela Baloyi, energy sector coordinator for the National Union of Mineworkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom’s three-year agreement reached in 2023 saw non-managerial employees’ salaries increase by 7% each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former state monopoly still generates the bulk of\u00a0South\u00a0Africa’s electricity and would like to agree on another multi-year wage deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unions have gone on strike during previous wage disputes, triggering power blackouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time around, the potential impact of a strike on Eskom’s operations is harder to gauge as the recent improvement in its generation fleet means it has excess capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eskom has raised its salary increase offer to trade unions, though it remains well below what workers are demanding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":833368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1164,24641],"class_list":["post-849371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-eskom","tag-salary-hike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":849372,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849371\/revisions\/849372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}