Ford suspended an employee for allegedly stealing cookies

Ford has suspended an employee who worked for 11 years at an SUV and pickup truck factory in Louisville, Kentucky, for allegedly not paying for chocolate chip cookies. This was reported on June 29 by Carscoops with reference to the Shifting Gears investigation.

According to the fired Kurt Kromm, on May 9, he went to one of the payment terminals at the factory and bought cookies for $1.95. After he swiped his debit card, the machine reported that the transaction had failed, so the man went to another terminal and paid for the purchase there. A week later, Kromm was called to the chief's office and informed that he was being fired, and escorted out of the factory by security guards. Ford representatives referred to the CCTV footage, which, according to them, captured the non-payment.

According to Kromm, a representative of the UAW workers' union called on him to apologize, but he turned out to be. As the man noted, it was pointed out to him that Ford's zero tolerance policy for theft had already cost five employees their jobs. Later, Kromm sent Ford to his representative at the UAW union, screenshots of a debit card transaction for the purchase of cookies. Two weeks later, the union responded to him, stating that the employer required notarization of bank statements.

Later, on June 12, the operator of the Aramark payment terminal confirmed to Ford representatives the information about the machine failure, and that the employee had indeed paid for the cookies during his shift, and a few days later, Cromm was allowed to return to work and promised to compensate for the loss of salary in five weeks. However, by this time, the man had already found a better-paying job ($52.5 per hour plus bonuses versus $48 per hour) in another place and closer to home. In 2025, he earned a total of more than $200,000 at the Ford plant.

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