A Stellenbosch restaurant is challenging an award by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) that ordered it to pay an aggrieved ex-staffer more than R300 000.
The Fat Butcher confirmed to SMF News on 15 September that its attorneys had instituted a Labour Court review application to challenge the finding.
According to the arbitration award document dated 13 August 2026, the restaurant dismissed the waiter, identified in the document as L. Sekeramayi, after he posted a WhatsApp status on 14 March 2025 criticising his “white racist old boss” about working hours and pay. He worked at the restaurant for about three years from 2022 to 2025.
The CCMA had ordered the Fat Butcher to pay half of the R313 877.25 award by 15 September and the balance by 15 October. However, on the day the first payment was due, the restaurant asked the Labour Court to review the ruling and provided a financial guarantee, temporarily preventing the award from being enforced, Fat Butcher management said.
According to the award document, Ilse de Vlieger-Seynhaeve, CCMA commissioner, found that the dismissal over the WhatsApp status had been substantively unfair, and ordered the Fat Butcher to pay the waiter R33 658 in compensation.
The commissioner nevertheless found that the WhatsApp post amounted to misconduct and could potentially damage the restaurant’s reputation. However, according to the award, she found that dismissal was too severe a sanction under the circumstances.
The more financially significant part of the case concerned the way in which the waiter was paid. According to the arbitration award document, the CCMA has ordered Fat Butcher to repay R269 478.25 in deductions that had not been properly agreed to, and R10 741 in outstanding annual-leave pay.
In total these amount to the R313 877.25 cited in the award document.
Asked for his opinion on the amount the restaurant has been ordered to pay, Hanro van Biljon, a labour law consultant, said it should not be considered an unusually large payout for unfair dismissal. He said only about R33 000 was related directly to the dismissal, while the bulk of the award concerned deductions that the commissioner found had to be repaid.
“The commissioner essentially merely applied the law and effected a rectification,” Van Biljon added.
But, said Dominique Martin, spokesperson for the Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU), the size of the award is particularly significant for a relatively low-paid hospitality worker.
“I hope that other employers will take note so that their coffers won’t feel this, because this is quite a significant amount,” she said.
SMF News reached out to the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (FEDHASA), requesting comment on the significance of this award in the service industry, but, they declined to comment on the matter.
In a written response to SMF News, the restaurant is rejecting what it describes as “certain material factual and legal findings” in the award, Fat Butcher management said in a written response to SMF News.
SMF News reached out to Sekeramayi, but he declined to comment on the matter, citing legal and personal reasons.
The Fat Butcher said it had also furnished security in terms of the Labour Relations Act and was relying on this to suspend the operation and enforcement of the award pending the outcome of the review.
Under section 145 of the Act, launching a review does not on its own suspend a CCMA award. The operation of the award may, however, be suspended when the required security is furnished.
In its written response to SMF News, Fat Butcher also explained that its waiters earn commission as well as customer gratuities (tips). The commission is calculated separately from these, and is always at least equal to the applicable minimum wage, said the restaurant. Minimum wage in South Africa currently stands at R30.23 per hour, according to the South African department of labour.
“Authorised deductions are made solely from the gratuity component,” added Fat Butcher.
But when the restaurant’s accounts and human resources manager, identified in the award document as “Ms Scheepers”, was asked during the arbitration where the waiter had agreed to the deductions, she is quoted as saying that there was no written agreement.
Section 34 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) generally requires an employee to agree in writing to a deduction relating to a specified debt, said professor André Louw, associate professor in labour law at Stellenbosch University.
“CCMA awards, unlike court judgments, are not binding on anyone other than the parties to the arbitration,” Louw added.
Asked whether this award could have broader implications, Louw said that “it might provide impetus for affected or aggrieved employees in the industry who believe that they are being subjected to similar practices by employers to institute action by labour inspectors from the department of employment and labour to investigate such claims and take appropriate remedial action in terms of the Act”.