Why not just exile them to Australia?

One of the best tourista things to do in Dublin is to pay a visit to Kilmainham Gaol. Although many people know of Kilmainham for the role it played in the Easter Rebellion of 1916, as it was the site of the execution of a number of the Rebellion's leaders the prison was in business from the late 18th century on. 

During the Great Famine (late 1840s) it housed many - including women and children - who were thrown in jail for stealing a loaf of bread to ward off starvation. In an early version of the three strikes rule, those who were repeat petty theft offenders could be shipped off to the penal colonies of Australia.

I thought of those poor Irish folks when I read about the Ford workers who were fired a couple of months back after being accused of stealing snacks by not checking out through the automated scanning system. 

The first to be let go was Kurt Kromm (age 60), a long-term worker hustled into a kangaroo court after the alleged incidence of theft, and accused of swiping a $1.95 package of Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

Kromm said two supervisors summoned him to the labor office, where they showed him surveillance footage that appeared to show a failed debit card transaction and informed him Ford intended to fire him for allegedly taking the cookie without paying. (Source: Daily Mail)

Kromm was pretty sure his transaction had gone through when he swiped his debit card the second time. Tough cookies to Mr. Kromm. He was fired - marched out without even being allowed to retrieve his personal belongings.

It took him a while to muster his proof - proof from his bank that he had paid $1.95 at the exact time of the incident: 

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

After they demanded a notarized bank statement, they then invited him to return to work.

The back and forth - notarized bank statement! for $1.95! - took several weeks, but Kromm was eventually told that he was getting his job back with full backpay, which by this point had amounted to a hefty $33K.

He refused the offer to return to work and, last I read, was considering taking legal action against the company. 

'Most companies would just ask you to pay for the cookie,' [Kromm] 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.' (Source: A different Daily Mail article)

I hope he does sue. And I hope he wins big. Imagine the mental anguish of losing a job you loved, a job you'd had for a long while, a well-paid job you hoped to retire from.

There are a handful of other workers at several different Ford plants who were fired for similar auto-checkout mishaps. (Some - not sure if all of them - have been reinstated.) One Ford employee said that "workers have long raised concerns about the Aramark-operated kiosks, citing problems including failed transactions, duplicate charges, frozen screens and missing receipts."

While Ford declined to comment on specifics, a spokesperson told the Daily Mail that they are reviewing the 'limited instances where Aramark kiosk issues have been raised.'

'We have invested significantly to upgrade our workplaces, including self-serve kiosks operated by Aramark to provide 24/7 convenience for our employees,' the spokesperson said.

'We are aware there have been some issues raised regarding the kiosk functionality in some limited cases, and we are working with Aramark to review these situations.'

An Aramark spokesperson also told the Daily Mail that they understand the concerns the reports have raised and are working with Ford to review each instance.

'We remain focused on operating with integrity and accountability,' the spokesperson said.

Integrity and accountability? Right. Tell that to the workers fired for no reason. 

But even if they had walked out without paying for a bag of Grandma's cookies, a Milky Way, some Doritos? What of it?

I'm not advocating for petty theft or petty thieves, but should someone lose their job over this? It's not as if these employees were walking out of the plants with tools, or robots. It's not as if the were damaging company property. It's not as if they were caught on camera not doing any work.

At best, even if these fellows had lifted the Grandma's, surely a warning, a reprimand, should have sufficed.

As Kurt Krumm said: 

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

Surely, Ford could have come up with a better idea here. 

Firing someone for presuming - with faulty "evidence yet" - that they stole something of negligible value is the same mentality that put a starving kid in Kilmainham Gaol, that shipped a starving father off to Australia for stealing a few loaves of bread during a famine.

Sheesh.

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Image Source: Walmart