Two of South Africa’s biggest trade unions have rejected an improved 6% salary increase offer from state-owned power utility Eskom, their representatives said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom has dragged on Africa’s largest economy for years, owing to power cuts and the company’s financial troubles, but improved performance from its coal-fired power stations has halted outages and brought the first annual profit in eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company began talks with three major unions last year and last month offered a pay increase of 5.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was raised to 6% during a third round of talks last week but was rejected by National Union of Mineworkers members, union spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NUM had made a revised demand for 12%, reduced from an initial 15%, far above South African annual inflation that stood at 3.6% in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s not Eskom management that ended load-shedding (power cuts), it’s the workers; and we feel that they must be rewarded for their hard work,” Mammburu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), said his union had also rejected the offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We don’t accept the current offer on the table,” he said, adding that further talks were scheduled for Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A third union, Solidarity, declined to comment, citing the sensitive state of negotiations. An Eskom spokesperson did not immediately respond to Reuters questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom, which reached a three-year pay deal in 2023 that increased non-managerial employees’ salaries by 7% each year, is seeking another multi-year wage deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom\u2019s average employee earns far more than workers in other state-owned companies, including several which generally require a high level of technically specialised capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom\u2019s 2025 financial year report showed that the power utility incurred an average cost of R1.026 million per employee<\/strong>, 12.4% higher than in the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increase was due to several factors, including a 7% annual salary adjustment and the return of short-term performance incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n