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.
...Millions of Aussies will be cheering Ben Roberts-Smith after seeing his publicity campaign. But we must leave all these matters to a criminal court to decide – this time beyond reasonable doubt.