Ford fires electrician Kurt Kromm after a break-room cookie dispute at the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, even though he says he paid $1.95 for the Grandma's cookie. The company later offered him his job back after checking the payment, a reversal that came after Kromm lost five weeks of work and about $28,000 in back pay.
Kurt Kromm and the cookie
Kromm, a 60-year-old UAW member who had worked at Ford for 11 years, said his blood sugar dropped around 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday shift. He said he went to the break room, tried one Aramark kiosk, saw a failed transaction, then used a second kiosk, paid, ate the cookie and returned to work.
A week later, he said a union bargainer told him, “they got you on video stealing a cookie.” Kromm later pulled up his bank statement and found the $1.95 charge had gone through. He said the confrontation left him thinking, “First you tell me I'm a thief and then you tell me I'm a liar.”
Ford and Aramark review
Ford eventually checked the payment with Aramark and offered Kromm his job back. A spokeswoman told Shifting Gears, “there are "times when we look into things and realize it could have been handled different,"” which is the closest public explanation Ford gave for backing away from the firing.
The company also reportedly agreed to change its approach to suspicious kiosk activity. Instead of firing workers outright, it will suspend them while looking into the transaction, a shift that matters because the first decision removed Kromm from the plant before the payment issue was sorted out.
Kromm’s return to Louisville
Kromm declined the offer to return. He took a new job back in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and said he plans to go to Louisville only to collect the tools Ford made him leave behind.
The practical takeaway for Ford workers is plain: a disputed kiosk charge can now trigger suspension rather than immediate discharge, but Kromm’s case also shows how fast a small payment error can cost a worker weeks of pay before the record is checked. What Ford relied on when it first decided to escort him out remains the unanswered point at the center of the episode.
