JOHANNESBURG – It’s back to the drawing board for Eskom as unions reject the latest wage offer of 5%.

Initially, Numsa, NUM, and Solidarity wanted 15% but came down to 9%.

The power utility has been saying it can’t afford any increases, but was forced to reconsider after strike action.

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Unions are now asking the power utility to come back with a final offer, which they will present to their members.

“We can’t just come to negotiation where there is no progress, we only got 0.3% today and that’s from one day and this is not worth taking back to workers,” said William Mabapa, from NUM.

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“To reach consensus between unions was easy, we are still united as unions it took long to go through items. It took time to go through the different items,” Tommy Wedderspoon, from Solidarity said.

“We are in the negotiations we don’t want to bargain in bad faith they know what we are cable of but that is not what we are advancing,” said Numsa’s Irvin Jim.

The ball is now back in Eskom’s court.

The power utility and trade unions have until Friday to find common ground.

eNCA