{"id":484391,"date":"2023-03-18T06:59:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T04:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=484391"},"modified":"2023-03-18T07:01:14","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T05:01:14","slug":"eskom-workers-under-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/investing\/484391-eskom-workers-under-siege.html","title":{"rendered":"Eskom workers under siege"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eskom chairman Mpho Makwana says Eskom\u2019s staff morale is very low, with employees struggling to make friends and their children getting bullied at school.<\/p>\n

Makwana made these comments during an interview with Newzroom Africa\u2019s Xoli Mngambi, focussing on problems at the power utility.<\/p>\n

Irvin Jim, the general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), said Eskom workers are permanently under siege.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are presented as thieves by the government because of shenanigans that take place around power stations where they work,\u201d Jim said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are dealing with a workforce with very low morale\u201d, which Jim said impacts the ability of the government to fix Eskom and resolve load-shedding.<\/p>\n

Makwana agreed with Jim, saying it can be expected that there is low staff morale among Eskom employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average Eskom employee, unionised or not, is under siege. Irvin Jim is correct,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir children get bullied at school. Their wives and husbands struggle to mingle in communities because they are seen as letting the country down with load-shedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Eskom chairman urged union leaders to reach out to the acting Eskom CEO and seek a partnership to address the problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than go on national TV and bemoan the situation, let\u2019s sit around the same table as partners,\u201d Makwana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs partners, we can discuss how we turn this place around. Let\u2019s go back to 2001, when Eskom was power utility of the year, and say how we can revive that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must find out how we can rekindle Eskom as a great place to work and which deliver electricity with pride to the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mpho Makwana, Eskom chairmman<\/p><\/div>\n

Discussions with staff after Andre de Ruyter\u2019s departure<\/h2>\n

Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter left the power utility \u201cwith immediate effect\u201d following his explosive interview on ENCA.<\/p>\n

Eskom said the decision followed the convening of a special Board meeting on 22 February 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eskom Board and Group Chief Executive (GCE) Andr\u00e8 de Ruyter had reached a mutual agreement to curtail his notice period to 28 February 2023,\u201d Eskom said.<\/p>\n

Revelations in the interview and the CEO\u2019s sudden departure added further fuel to the Eskom fire, which Makwana said they are addressing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had three virtual conversations with our staff after De Ruyter\u2019s departure. I\u2019ve also had a leadership talk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The leadership talked centred around what is right at Eskom. \u201cTo have the energy to fix what is wrong at an organisation, you also have to celebrate what is working,\u201d Makwana said.<\/p>\n

The focus is to inspire the top leadership at Eskom, which the board hopes will filter down to other employees.<\/p>\n

He highlighted that the responsibility of staff engagement lies with the chief executive and that the board always comes as guests of Eskom executives.<\/p>\n

\n

This article was first published on Daily Investor<\/a><\/strong> and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now read:\u00a0Eskom’s 19% price hike gets final approval \u2014 with bad news for urban and industrial customers<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom chairman Mpho Makwana says Eskom\u2019s staff morale is very low, with employees struggling to make friends and their children getting bullied at school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341108,"featured_media":472089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80335],"tags":[181,35,51867,81715],"class_list":["post-484391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-eskom","tag-headline","tag-loadshedding","tag-mpho-makwana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}