Ford fires employee for Grand Theft Cookie...

[martinjlm]

Ford wrongly accused a worker of stealing a $1.95 cookie and fired him

After accusing a longtime employee of stealing a $1.95 cookie, Ford tried to hire him back.

But Kurt Kromm, 60, says there's one thing standing in the way of his return: An apology that never came.

Kromm spent 11 years repairing robots and automated equipment at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. He was fired after being accused of walking off with two Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies without paying for them.

The incident happened on May 9, when Kromm stopped at an Aramark self-checkout kiosk during his overnight shift to buy the cookies after his blood sugar dropped to 60. As a diabetic, he said he needed something to eat quickly.

Kromm told the New York Post that when he swiped his debit card, the payment screen flashed red, indicating the transaction had failed.

He tried again, but while the screen never displayed the usual green approval checkmark, it also didn't say the payment had been declined.

Thinking the purchase had gone through, Kromm returned to work.

'I figured, well, it probably went through,' Kromm told The Post. 'And I might have went over to the other kiosk and paid. This was so inconsequential to me - $1.95. I figured I paid.'

However, a week later, on May 16, two supervisors would summon him into the labor office, where he was shown surveillance video and accused of having stolen the cookie.

According to Kromm, a union bargainer told him the situation was serious before informing him that Ford wanted to terminate him for allegedly taking a cookie without paying.

Kromm said he was bewildered by the claim and watched in shock as the officials showed him the footage that appeared to show a failed transaction after he swiped his debit card.

Immediately following the office confrontation, Kromm was escorted from the plant and blocked from retrieving any of his belongings.

'They just terminated me, walked me out of the building,' Kromm recounted to The Post. 'I had to get the union steward to even go get my personal laptop because they wouldn't let me go get anything - 'you are terminated, get out.'

Convinced Ford had gotten it wrong, Kromm began compiling evidence to show the $1.95 cookie had, in fact, been paid for.

Within days, he asked a former coworker to photograph the break-room kiosk to confirm the cookie's price. He also reviewed his bank records and found what he says was the missing proof.

The charge appeared as the first transaction on his credit card statement, timestamped at 3.38am.

Kromm said he immediately emailed screenshots of the transaction to Ford labor executives and union officials.

About 10 days later, he said the company asked him to provide a notarized bank statement verifying the purchase. After he submitted the document, Ford informed him several weeks later that he would be reinstated with full back pay - about $33,000 - and invited him to return to work.

But the damage was done, and Kromm refused to go back due to the emotional toll the abrupt escort out of the building had taken and the lack of apology from the company.

'There was no apology. There was no serious, 'We're sorry,' Kromm told The Post. 'There was just, 'Oh, you're not coming back?' No, I am not interested in coming back.'

Kromm, who expected to work for Ford until he retired, described the company as a 'home away from home' and that the decision to not return was 'tremendously difficult for me'.

The case was first reported by journalist Phoebe Wall Howard's Substack newsletter, Shifting Gears.

Ford declined to discuss Kromm's individual case, but told The Post that 'there are times when we look into things and realize it could have been handled differently. When that happens, we try to rectify it.'

Kromm also criticized both Ford and his union, saying neither gave him a chance to explain what ultimately turned out to be a payment error.

'Most companies would just ask you to pay for the cookie,' he said.

'I can't come back to a company that fired me like this without giving me any opportunity to prove I paid,' Kromm told the New York Post. 'It was just ridiculous. I can't.'

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[Joshinator99]

Ugh, unreal…where has common sense gone these days? This is beyond absurd. Don’t blame the guy for telling Ford to get lost.

 

[Datalux]

Honestly, this sounds like one of those corporate situations where there’s clearly more to the story than just a single cookie. HR usually doesn't pull the trigger on a firing unless there's a history of other issues or it’s a zero-tolerance policy being strictly enforced, which is pretty brutal for something so small. It’s wild how quickly a professional reputation can take a hit over something that sounds so trivial, but I guess that’s what happens when you cross those internal lines. Definitely a good reminder to just keep your head down and stay out of the breakroom drama at work.

 

[1 old racer]

can you say lawsuit?

 

[Balr14]

Isn't corporate bureaucracy wonderful!!!

I'm sooo glad I'm retired.

 

[Inthehighdesert]

Also very much comes off with some middle manager/supervisor trying to make themselves stand out. The asked to return with full backpay is what sticks out to me. Unfortunately corporations upper managers rarely if ever step up and state the obvious in situations like this. It’s baffling because it actually can really help a brand out.

Honestly, this sounds like one of those corporate situations where there’s clearly more to the story than just a single cookie. HR usually doesn't pull the trigger on a firing unless there's a history of other issues or it’s a zero-tolerance policy being strictly enforced, which is pretty brutal for something so small. It’s wild how quickly a professional reputation can take a hit over something that sounds so trivial, but I guess that’s what happens when you cross those internal lines. Definitely a good reminder to just keep your head down and stay out of the breakroom drama at work.

 

[Balr14]

Waiting for an apology is a bad idea. There is nobody who can give you one within the processes and procedures they must follow. The concept simply does not exist. There are probably more than a few Ford middle managers willing to offer an apology, but they aren't authorized.

 

[John S]

HR usually doesn't pull the trigger on a firing unless there's a history of other issues

Toxic workplace environments are currently thriving at Ford and GM as both companies continue to purge employees at all levels. What's so disturbing about this situation is the extreme overreaction and cruel behavior by Ford/HR with no effort to use common sense in the investigation while the UAW stood by and did nothing? Hard to believe, but I then I'm not surprised. I would lawyer up just to see Ford squirm in court trying to explain how their behavior was all perfectly legal.

 

[Snakebyte]

As @Datalux indicated, there may be more to the story. It could be as simple as a coworker that didn't like him assuming the worst, and then reporting him. It could be a manager that had a not so shining experience with the employee.

It used to be people looked forward to the day that truth would be revealed when seeing something in writing.

And then years later when culture changed, we thought surely having an audio recording would confirm truth.

And then when technology got to where it was easy to cut/splice/alter audio, we thought video would be the holy grail to confirm truth.

And then technology improved to where people were able to alter video, even with audio.

So then AI came along...and well, we're already far down that rabbit hole in our culture.

But going back to the audio and video aspects...What occurred immediately prior to, or immediately after the audio/video clip? It obviously, in hindsight, would have been good HR work to learn about the before and after before pronouncing judgement.

But...we all in our lifetime have probably been guilty at least once of developing a conclusion, a judgement, without ALL the facts. Hopefully when we read about Ford's and similar incidents, we learn, in our own lives, to be quick to listen and slow to judge. Hmmm...we have that occur on our forum a bit don't we. But....we'll all learn from this, and do right, right?

 

[Bob Lob Law]

As someone who has worked in a manufacturing plant for close to 20 years, this does not surprise me at all! I've seen people get fired for all kinds of silly stuff! Some silly ones stuck through arbitration and others didn't. Counting on the union to help is a coin toss as well.

 

[pinksurfer]

agree with datalux as well....
always 3 sides to the story, the cookie owner(aramark, not ford), kurts, and somewhere in the middle will lie the truth.

if he was a model employee I would be surprised that ford/uaw would act so harshly on an accusation from a 3rd party vendor onsite. my gut is there's a lot more to this associates file than we will ever know but the internet courts have already tried and convicted ford without all the data.

agree with bob lob law as well if you think the union is there for you. I manage a union warehouse and the union has not been successful in bringing a single person back nor have they been up for splitting the 30k in arbitration expense to fight any terminations. you are a number on a balance sheet with a value to them.

 

[Vlad Soare]

But...we all in our lifetime have probably been guilty at least once of developing a conclusion, a judgement, without ALL the facts.

Sure we have. But actually acting on that rushed judgement in a way that drastically affects other people's lives is a completely different story. Ford is entitled to consider him a possible thief based on the initial evidence. But dismissing him in such a shameful manner without even giving him a chance to speak is inexcusable.

my gut is there's a lot more to this associates file than we will ever know but the internet courts have already tried and convicted ford without all the data.

Fair enough. I'm with you on that. But then I would expect Ford to respond and defend their decision. The lack of any comment from them isn't likely to make me doubt the verdict of the internet courts. Particularly when they way these massive "too-big-to-fail" corporations use to treat their blue collar workforce isn't exactly a secret, so the internet courts' verdict isn't surprising or unlikely.

 

[martinjlm]

... But then I would expect Ford to respond and defend their decision. The lack of any comment from them isn't likely to make me doubt the verdict of the internet courts. Particularly when they way these massive "too-big-to-fail" corporations use to treat their blue collar workforce isn't exactly a secret, so the internet courts' verdict isn't surprising or unlikely.

The issue here is that it was a very LOCAL decision that Ford CORPORATE has now had to handle on the fly. Big corporations have a difficult time doing that, especially with sensitive HR issues and especially when the remedy is one based more on human responsibility and action (apologize) versus adherence to policy. Especially when Corporate sees apologizing as admission of wrongdoing that can open up Corporate to civil damages pursuant to a Local action. In plain English...Corporate is probably hesitant to force Local to apologize because that could open up other liability issues.

 

[Joshinator99]

The issue here is that it was a very LOCAL decision that Ford CORPORATE has now had to handle on the fly. Big corporations have a difficult time doing that, especially with sensitive HR issues and especially when the remedy is one based more on human responsibility and action (apologize) versus adherence to policy. Especially when Corporate sees apologizing as admission of wrongdoing that can open up Corporate to civil damages pursuant to a Local action. In plain English...Corporate is probably hesitant to force Local to apologize because that could open up other liability issues.

This 100%

 

[Vlad Soare]

The issue here is that it was a very LOCAL decision that Ford CORPORATE has now had to handle on the fly. Big corporations have a difficult time doing that, especially with sensitive HR issues and especially when the remedy is one based more on human responsibility and action (apologize) versus adherence to policy. Especially when Corporate sees apologizing as admission of wrongdoing that can open up Corporate to civil damages pursuant to a Local action. In plain English...Corporate is probably hesitant to force Local to apologize because that could open up other liability issues.

I don't mean a formal apology, but rather a comment explaining their point of view to the paper that published the article. They say Ford declined to discuss the case, which to me signals that they know they did something wrong.

If they think their decision was justified and they stand by it, then they can say so. They can say, "the employee's report is incorrect and/or incomplete, there's more to this story that transpired in the media, but our internal processes don't allow us to divulge more, etc". Then I might at least consider believing them.

But If they don't, then we have reason to believe that the report is true. You can't just shut up and then expect people to give you the benefit of the doubt. Why should they?

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