This tactic goes by the lawful name of at will employment.

I think unemployment is paid to the State while they are working, no?

they did it to soon, most of them try to get rid of the employee months before they become 65

Law suit territory. Time for a comfortable retirement.

Seems like a slam dunk case. What a joke of a company. Hope they fire everyone who thought it was smart to fire this guy. Huge waste

Wrongful termination for sure, idk about defamation. I think it'd be hard to argue being accused of stealing a cookie actually hurt your reputation in any meaningful way.

I think Kromm should give them a first hand lesson in the riddle of steel...

Should buy a Komatsu D355A and a mig welder.

Lolz. Public corporations don't care about your well being. If there is an ROI on any action, it's worth taking and if that means no cookies because it ensure the shareholders get a fraction of a percent return, then no cookies for you.

I'm working hard to leave my current corpo. They're down to the "bring the dry pen back to get a new one" stage of bean counting. That's a sinking ship to disembark from ASAP.

Gotta milk every last cent out of us. Honestly the absurdity and cruelty only make the revolution come that much faster and if they are cruel enough we won't even have any moral hangups about it (for those that would).

Same people that expect YOU to work hard enough to generate millions in revenue while THEY take 99% of it.

If it ain't in a vending machine, it should be free.

I have definitely seen vending machines at various office over the years.

My current company contracts someone to keep a few fridges and shelves in the break room stocked with higher grade convenience-store style food. The prices are pretty cheap, so I suspect they actually lose money on the deal. If I grabbed some food and just walked away with it, that would technically be stealing. I doubt they would confront me about something that small, though. Ford is obviously wrong to fire someone over a cookie.

It always seemed like a no-brainer to me to provide subsidized food for expensive salary workers who may be willing to work unpaid overtime if they don’t have to leave to get dinner, at least from a logic self-serving point of view.

Yep. I remember having to temporarily sit at the desk of some department head to address a network problem, whose desk was covered in paperwork involving some poor custodian who was asking for a medically necessary limited period of light duty as a result of a work-related injury, and this director's handwritten notes all over it, with shit like "if she can't do the job she shouldn't be here, let's draw a line under this," etc. It was clear exactly what they were getting at; they ALL knew the law, hence the handwritten notes and vague language. The casual nature of it was revolting.

And I hope they sued the fuck out of that company. Age discrimination is illegal as fuck.

sounds like the one in the article, and an another story i heard years back. a a stewardess was 60-70+yo in her airline job, and the airline accused her of stealing and fired her, she was earning 200k+/year plus other benefits, and she was on the verge or retiring. they knew what they were doing. they are probably figure people wouldnt notice and she would accept it, or they mightve calculated the potential lawsuit costs of firing her.(using this as a template to fire people before they even have a chance to sue).

Yeah. If your company is looking that closely into your behavior, they are looking for an excuse instead of a reason.

Or as someone else here said, he was getting too close to retirement or some other kind of seniority/longevity-based benefit that the company didn't want to pay out.

I miss when you only didn't get the security deposit back

200k+year is the reason, they just try to obfuscate by saying it something else, and stealing is the easiest to accuse and harder to prove. they probably expect the person to accept it and not lawyer up, because lawyers are expensive.

But to even think of using it as an excuse..

In Norway/most of Europe a lawyer would've had a field day with this case.

it was about his pay, benefits, retirements.

$1.95 is more than a nickel and a dime... that's a profit center for several people in the supply chain.