ANA reports that more than 100 National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members marched on Saturday to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to hand over a memorandum protesting against Eskom’s plans to retrench workers.  The marchers were joined by members of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and union federation Cosatu.  On Wednesday, the state-owned power utility announced that it had started a process to retrench workers at executive management level.  Eskom furthermore reportedly plans to retrench 7,000 workers through voluntary severance packages over the next five years.  NUM president Joseph Montisetsi said government was misleading the country about jobs created through the Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (IPPs).  It is the union’s view that IPPs will collapse Eskom.  Montisetsi insisted that the NUM was not opposed to renewable energy, but its introduction should be fair and not against the working class.  “NUM is not against cleaner energy; cleaner energy must be independent and operate as an independent entity and compete with Eskom,” he stated.
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