adminsaid the stoppage would not have an immediate impact on plants providing electricity to Africa’s largest economy.
Hundreds of thousands of workers across the country have downed tools in recent weeks, or are threatening to do so seeking raises double or triple the 5 percent inflation rate in the mid-year bargaining session known locally as “strike season”.
State-run Eskom , which relies on coal for most of its power generation, said the latest strike would only have an impact if it became protracted.
“We’ve got on average 38 days of coal stockpiles at the power stations,” spokesman Tony Stott said.
“If the strikes goes for a long time and demand goes up due to cold weather, it would put the system under severe strain.” Lesiba Seshoka, spokesman for the powerful National Union of Mineworkers, said employers have offered pay rises of 7 to 8,5 percent. The union said there were currently no plans for fresh talks. Eskom has been under pressure to build new plants to avoid a repeat of the power shortage that brought the economy to its knees in 2008, forcing mines and other industries to shut down for days and costing the country billions of dollars in lost output.
Eskom plans steep increases in electricity prices to pay for much-needed new power stations, adding to inflationary pressures and taking more money out of middle-class paychecks. The Chamber of Mines is negotiating on behalf of several coal mining groups, including Anglo Thermal Coal SA, Exxaro, Optimum Coal and Xstrata Coal.
Eskom is facing political pressure to settle with workers. The country’s ruling African National Congress is allied with organised labour and wants to placate its millions of voters.
Employers over the past two years have struck wage deals averaging about 8 percent, a survey said, with many firms seeing the above-inflation settlements as a necessary cost of doing business in South Africa. – Reuters.
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