Africa-Press – South-Africa. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) have again called for plans to unbundle Eskom to be halted – – claiming this is a backdoor attempt to privatise the power utility.
The NUM and the SACP marched to the offices of Eskom and the Department of Employment and Labour in Bellville in the Western Cape this past weekend.
The union and party believe unbundling the parastatal into separate enterprises for generation, transmission and distribution is bad news.
They also want a reversal of the recent electricity tariff hikes.
NUM president Phillip Vilakazi said Eskom’s restructuring threatens jobs, collective bargaining, and fair working conditions.
“We cannot handover these democratic rights because we would have sold out all the gains of workers. Eskom, the memorandum is going to tell you, if you didn’t know, that the electricity tariffs are the reason why the economy is not growing.”
He said calls for Eskom to hurry plans to decommission coal fired power plants over climate concerns will only make mattersworse.
“If there is anyone who lists mining products to be critical, let them include coal. We want coal to be a critical mineral and all the minerals on the continent of Africa, they must be critical.”
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