On Tuesday afternoon, Eskom and labour unions reached an agreement in wage negotiations that will bring an end to a weeks-long strike by Eskom employees.
Unfortunately this doesn’t mean loadshedding will be suspended just yet.
The agreement will see salary increases amounting to 7 percent for employees that are affected by the Central Bargaining Forum discussions. This increase will be applied from 1st July 2022 to 30th June 2023. During this period the housing allowance will increase by R400 per month.
“The overall effect of this agreement on the wage bill will be more than R1 billion over the period of the agreement. This of course will be a struggle for Eskom to afford,” the utility said in a statement.
While the National Union of Mineworkers, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and Solidarity have urged their members to return to work, the utility has said that it will be “sometime” to recover.
This is because maintenance work has piled up during the strike and there is now a backlog.
As of time of writing the plan for loadshedding for the rest of the week is as follows:
6th July
- Stage 4 – 05:00 to 16:00
- Stage 5 – 16:00 to 22:00
- Stage 4 – 22:00 to 00:00
7th July
- Stage 2 – 00:00 to 05:00
- Stage 4 – 05:00 to 16:00
- Stage 5 – 16:00 to 22:00
- Stage 4 – 22:00 to 00:00
8th July
- Stage 2 – 00:00 to 05:00
- Stage 3 – 05:00 to 00:00
9th July
- Stage 2 all day
10th July
- Stage 2 all day
We should note that Eskom has said that loadshedding for Friday to Sunday is heavily dependent on generating units returning to service.
With no end to the outages in sight, we urge you to download EskomSePush for Android and iOS devices to plan your week, and weekend, ahead accordingly.
