The fluorescent lights of the Eskom Conference Centre in Sunninghill flickered once, twice, as if the building itself was weary from the day’s proceedings. For nearly nine hours, representatives from South Africa’s embattled power utility and the country’s largest labour unions had sat across a polished oak table, trading proposals, counter-proposals, and, toward the end, thinly veiled ultimatums.
When the doors finally opened just after 8 p.m. on Wednesday, there was no triumphant press conference. No handshake. No joint statement. Instead, union officials walked past the waiting journalists in silence, their faces etched with frustration. The fourth round of wage negotiations had collapsed.
Now, the unions are going back to their members—to the power station operators, the maintenance crews, the administrative staff who keep the lights on for 60 million South Africans—to ask a simple but explosive question: Are you willing to fight for this?
The Sticking Point
At the heart of the impasse is money. It is always money at Eskom.
The embattled utility, which is drowning in more than R400 billion in debt and relies on regular government bailouts to stay afloat, tabled a final offer of a 3.5% wage increase across the board, plus a once-off R5,000 “cost-of-living adjustment” for lower-paid workers. The offer, Eskom’s chief negotiator argued, was the maximum the utility could afford without triggering a further downgrade or diverting funds from critical maintenance.
The unions—led by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), and Solidarity—laughed it out of the room.
“We are not here to beg,” said NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu, pacing the corridor outside the negotiation chamber. “Our members have not seen a real increase in three years. Inflation is at 6.8%. Electricity prices have gone up twice. But Eskom wants to give us 3.5%? That is not a negotiation. That is an insult.”
The unions are demanding a 12% increase, plus a R10,000 housing allowance and full retention of all existing benefits. Eskom has called that “economically impossible” and warned that any settlement above 5% would require further government bailouts—bailouts that the National Treasury has repeatedly said are not forthcoming.
The Return to Members
With talks at an impasse, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has declared a deadlock. The next step, under labour law, is for the unions to consult their members before deciding whether to issue a formal strike notice.
Over the next two weeks, union shop stewards will fan out across Eskom’s 15 power stations, its transmission substations, and its administrative hubs in all nine provinces. They will hold mass meetings in community halls, under marquee tents, and, in some cases, right on the plant floors during shift changeovers.
“Members must understand what is at stake,” said NUMSA’s general secretary Irvin Jim in a fiery address to supporters outside the negotiations on Wednesday. “Eskom wants to make us poorer while we keep this country from falling into darkness. We will not accept it. But we will not act without a mandate. That is democracy.”
The union leaders know, however, that a mandate is far from guaranteed. Eskom’s workforce is deeply divided. Older workers, who remember the mass retrenchments of 2018 and 2019, are wary of any action that might give the utility an excuse to cut jobs. Younger workers, many of them on short-term contracts, are angrier but also more financially vulnerable—a strike could mean weeks without pay.
“We have to be smart,” said a shop steward at the Kendal Power Station, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. “Yes, we want more money. But if we strike and Eskom collapses, we all lose our jobs. That is not a victory.”
The Strike Threat
If the unions do secure a mandate for a strike, the earliest possible date for industrial action would be in early June, following a mandatory 14-day cooling-off period. But a strike at Eskom is not like a strike at a factory or a mine. It carries national consequences.
The last major strike at Eskom, in 2018, lasted just five days but triggered rolling blackouts that cost the economy an estimated R3 billion per day. Hospitals ran on generators. Water treatment plants struggled. Small businesses closed their doors permanently.
This time, the stakes are even higher. The national grid is more fragile than it has been in a decade. Eskom has implemented stage 4 load-shedding on 47 days already this year, and the utility’s own system adequacy report warns that the winter months will be “extremely challenging” even without a strike.
“A strike at Eskom would be catastrophic,” said energy analyst Chris Yelland, speaking from his Johannesburg office. “You cannot simply replace 40,000 skilled workers. The grid would become unstable within hours. We are talking about a national emergency—not inconvenience, not blackouts, but a potential systemic collapse.”
Eskom’s Gamble
Eskom, for its part, appears to be digging in. CEO Dan Marokane, who took the helm just over a year ago with a mandate to stabilize the utility, has made no secret of his belief that the era of double-digit wage increases is over.
“We have a responsibility to the South African people,” Marokane said in a statement released after the talks collapsed. “We cannot agree to demands that would bankrupt the utility and leave us unable to generate electricity at all. We remain committed to good-faith negotiations, but we must be realistic about what Eskom can afford.”
The statement did not mention the word “strike.” It did not need to. The threat hangs in the air like the coal dust that settles over Mpumalanga’s power belt.
The Political Dimension
The stalled wage talks have also caught the attention of the government, which remains Eskom’s sole shareholder and ultimate guarantor. Public Enterprises Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who has made a habit of intervening in Eskom disputes, has so far remained publicly silent. But behind the scenes, his office has been shuttling between the parties, urging restraint.
“There is no appetite in the government for another bailout,” said a senior official in the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But there is also no appetite for a national blackout. The minister is watching this very closely. He may step in if the situation escalates.”
Opposition parties have been less circumspect. The Democratic Alliance (DA) called on the unions to “put the national interest before their own narrow demands,” while the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) accused Eskom of “deliberately provoking a crisis to justify privatization.”
What Happens Next
For the next two weeks, the fate of South Africa’s power supply rests in the hands of union members gathered in drafty halls and dusty parking lots. They will debate. They will argue. They will vote.
If they reject a strike mandate, the unions will be forced back to the table with weakened leverage, likely accepting something close to Eskom’s offer. If they approve a strike mandate, the clock will start ticking toward what could be the most damaging industrial action in a decade.
Outside the Sunninghill conference centre, as the last of the union officials finally departed, a small group of Eskom workers from the nearby Orlando power station waited quietly. They held no placards. They chanted no slogans. They simply stood, arms crossed, watching the doors.
“We just want to go to work and keep the lights on,” said one, a 28-year-old control room operator who gave his name only as Thabo. “But we also want to feed our families. Why is that too much to ask?”
He turned and walked toward the parking lot, his boots heavy on the asphalt. Behind him, the conference centre lights went out, one by one, until the building was dark.
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