COSATU denounces and rejects any planned retrenchments at Eskom

4 April 2018

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted with alarm the reports of lobbying by some organisations like OUTA for Eskom to retrench thousands of workers. It is ironic that organisation like OUTA like to pontificate about how the political meddling by the Guptas destabilised Eskom but they do not realise that their own meddling that is currently putting thousands of innocent workers lives at stake. COSATU is not going to allow OUTA to replace the Guptas by interfering at Eskom.

We want to caution the state-owned power utility to not succumb to the toxic pressure of these lobbying groups because that will muddy the waters and poison relations with trade unions. We are not going to entertain any talk of retrenchments at Eskom.

People are lobbying for Telkom to retrench workers so that they can be contracted as service providers to do the same work that is being done by the workers. COSATU is not going to allow some unctuous opportunists to exploit the Eskom crisis to embark on their own version of state capture.

The federation is not going to allow the privatisation of Eskom and the victimisation of workers. Workers should not be forced to pay with their livelihoods for the failures of government. We have seen no tangible steps to address the poor leadership and financial mismanagement at Eskom and the rush to cut jobs and destroy the livelihoods of many innocent workers and their families is an ill-conceived idea.

COSATU is adamant that we will not be able to clean up and save our SOEs without them being subject to comprehensive forensic audits.  This must include the life style audits of politicians, senior government and SOE executives and business leaders.

We have seen no arrests, asset seizures or prosecutions to dissuade people from looting. All we see is the rush to privatise, increase tariff hikes and planned mass retrenchment of workers. COSATU warns government and President Cyril Ramaphosa in particular that his job and investments summits will become redundant if state –owned entities are going to be the ones destroying jobs.

The President correctly said we need to have a plan to create jobs for every sector of the economy.  We need to see more action from government about how it plans to kick-start the economy, create jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed citizens.

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 4 April 2018