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Workers’ strike at South Africa

utility Eskom exacerbates

electricity supply crisis

SOUTH AFRICA WORKERS at South Africa’s debt-ridden state- that the protests had included incidents of intim-
owned power utility, Eskom, have gone on strike idation of working employees and blockades on
for higher salaries, a development that has forced roads leading to power stations. The company
it to intensify electricity load shedding country- has asked police to restore order.
wide, reports say. “It is necessary to bolster emergency gen-
Wage talks collapsed on June 21, resulting in eration reserves to react to unforeseen cir-
workers staging the protests that are worsening cumstances, as well as to replenish emergency
the already tight electricity supply situation in reserves to prepare for the week ahead,” Eskom
Africa’s most industrialised economy. said according to the Mail & Guardian, a local
Eskom said it would increase the sever- paper. “This would help fill the generation deficit
ity of the outages to “Stage 4,” requiring up while dealing with generating units that may trip
to 4,000MW of capacity to be shed from the amidst the disturbances and compensate for the
national grid, from 11:00am to midnight on Fri- inability to return generating units timeously to
day (June 24), Reuters reports. Stage 4 outages service.”
were also to be implemented from 0500 local Demands by labour groups are still far from
time until midnight on Saturday and Sunday. the below-inflation offers by Eskom, a loss-mak-
“While exploring possible solutions to unlock ing business that cannot afford to service its
the deadlock with the unions, Eskom appeals $25bn of debt without government bailouts,
to its labour partners and striking employees Bloomberg reports.
to embrace the higher purpose of putting the The power utility has a total production
people of South Africa first,” Eskom said in a capacity of 46,000MW, 80% of which is pro-
statement. duced by ageing coal-fired plants. On Friday,
By law, workers at the utility are not allowed Eskom indicated that more than 20,000MW
to withdraw their labour as they work for an was unavailable due to planned maintenance
essential service provider. However, Eskom said and breakdowns.™

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