South Africans will experience a weekend of load-shedding as Eskom and unions continue wage negotiations.
On Saturday the National Union of Metal Workers announced it has taken the latest wage offer to its members.
“We deliberated for almost 12 hours and finally, Eskom made a wage offer with a proposed draft agreement. We are taking it to our members for a mandate. We understand that the entire country is watching these talks with keen interest because resolving this is in the public interest, and there is a lot of pressure for us to give a response right away,” the union said in a statement.
The union asked for “the public’s patience because we are a worker-controlled union”.
“We have a duty to consult members first, before we give a formal response to Eskom.”
On Friday the power utility announced that stage 6 would be implemented over the weekend. However, it later announced that the country will experience a mixture of stage 2 and 4.
“Eskom cautions that this small reprieve is due to lower than demand during the weekend and continues to evaluate the situation and closely monitor the system,” it said.
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