South African trade union Solidarity has called for emergency negotiations to be held this weekend with state-owned power company Eskom over a possible strike by its members next week after it was revealed that Eskom’s executive committee received an average salary increase of 83%. Solidarity – alone of the three unions that represent Eskom’s 30,000 employees – had not previously called for a strike earlier this week after Eskom failed to improve on its offer of an 8.5% wage increase and a 1,000 rand ($128) housing allowance per employee.

• [Editor:editor]