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A Cape Town law enforcement officer lost his job — and then lost his fight to get it back. The Labour Court has dismissed a review application brought by the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) on behalf of officer May, a City of Cape Town safety and security employee who was caught attending a staff party while on sick leave. The court’s decision, handed down by Acting Judge Snyman, is a sharp reminder that procedural deadlines in labour law are not suggestions, and that trade unions carry real responsibility when they handle their members’ cases.
The story begins on December 15, 2022, when May showed up to a staff year-end function — a function the City of Cape Town had explicitly refused to authorise. His colleagues had been told the event would not be permitted. May, however, was not in the office to receive that instruction: he was booked off sick at the time. What sealed his fate was not defiance, but photographs. Facebook images surfaced showing him at the party, visibly present and participating, while he was officially too ill to perform his duties. The contradiction was impossible to ignore, and disciplinary proceedings followed swiftly.
At his disciplinary hearing, May faced multiple charges. He was acquitted on the first, but found guilty on charges of dishonesty and insubordination. He was dismissed in February 2024. On internal appeal, the insubordination finding was overturned — the appeal chairperson accepted that May genuinely could not have received the instruction banning the function, since he was off sick when it was issued. But the dishonesty finding stood firm. The appeal chairperson concluded that May had acted dishonestly by claiming to be too ill to work while simultaneously attending a social event. That distinction — between what he knew and what he did — proved decisive.
SAMWU then referred the matter to the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) as an unfair dismissal dispute. The arbitrator, ruling in November 2024, found that May’s dismissal was substantively fair. Undeterred, SAMWU and May approached the Labour Court to have the arbitration award reviewed and set aside, seeking May’s reinstatement with full back-pay. That is where things fell apart — not on the merits of the case, but on something far more basic: time.
The review application arrived 21 days after the statutory six-week deadline had expired. The arbitration award was received in November 2024, but the application was only filed in February 2025. To proceed, the applicants needed the court’s condonation — essentially, official forgiveness for the late filing. Courts do grant condonation, but applicants must make a proper case for it, explaining the delay clearly and upfront, from the very first affidavit. SAMWU did not do that. Their founding affidavit punted the explanation to a later stage, the supplementary affidavit added nothing of substance, and only the replying affidavit — the last document filed — actually attempted to account for the delay.
The explanation that eventually emerged pointed to internal union processes: the award was discussed with May on November 26, 2024, then referred to SAMWU’s national office, legal opinions were obtained, union offices closed over the festive season, and authority to proceed was only granted on February 3, 2025. Judge Snyman was unmoved. The court stated plainly that trade unions engaged in labour disputes must organise their internal decision-making so that statutory deadlines can actually be met — the festive season does not pause the law. Critically, there was also no explanation of what May himself had done to follow up on his own case during those months, and the applicants had entirely failed to address the prejudice that refusing condonation would cause — a standard requirement in any such application.
Even setting aside the procedural failure, the court found that the prospects of successfully overturning the arbitrator’s substantive finding were limited. May’s situation — claiming sick leave while attending a social function, with photographic evidence to prove it — left little room for a different conclusion. The Labour Court’s ruling closes the chapter on this case, but it opens a broader conversation about accountability: for workers who test the boundaries of sick leave, and for unions whose internal bureaucracy must never become a reason their members lose their legal rights.
