Ford fired worker over a $1.95 cookie he had paid for — he later won a better job

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Ford insisted the Kentucky worker prove he paid at the factory snack kiosk.

Kurt Kromm was called into the office and let go over a $1.95 cookie.

A bank statement proved he paid, and he later landed a better-paying job.

A $1.95 cookie is not the sort of thing that usually ends a long career. But, according to Kurt Kromm, it ended his.

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Kromm, who says he spent 11 years working at Ford’s truck factory in Louisville, Kentucky, says the company terminated him over an allegation that he did not pay for a chocolate chip cookie at the canteen, according to Shifting Gears . The plant builds the Super Duty, the Expedition, and the Lincoln Navigator, employs more than 8,000 workers, and generated $25 billion in revenue in 2023.

At 60, he says he averaged 60 hours a week in 2025, which made the accusation harder to fathom. “I earned over $200,000 last year. Why would I steal? I spent $1,200 last year in the canteen mainly on Diet Cokes,” said Kromm, who is diabetic. The cookie was a Grandma’s Chocolate Chip Cookie, bought after he felt light-headed from low blood sugar.

Read: Kentucky Workers Are Furious After Ford’s EV Factory Reversal

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The incident happened at around 3:30 a.m. on May 9 while Kromm was working a 12-hour shift from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. He went to one of the factory’s payment kiosks and bought the $1.95 cookie. After he swiped his debit card, the machine said it had failed to process the transaction, so he moved to another kiosk and paid there. The kiosk video later showed a red screen instead of the green check mark that confirms payment, which Kromm says is exactly why he switched machines.

Fired A Week Later

Seven days later, Kromm was called into a supervisor’s office and told he was being fired for nonpayment, with Ford citing security camera footage it said caught him not paying. He was escorted out immediately, barred from taking his tools, and his personal laptop was retrieved from his desk so it wouldn’t be left behind. According to Kromm, the UAW bargainer urged him to apologize, saying workers who do, get back sooner. He refused, certain he had paid, and claimed he was told Ford’s zero-tolerance theft policy had already cost five workers their jobs.

“I’m thinking, this is the way my career at Ford Motor is going to end? There’s no way I’m coming back. First you tell me I’m a thief and then you tell me I’m a liar for saying I didn’t steal. They were so confident I’d stolen. And then I look in my checking account statement and the $1.95 is frickin’ there,” he told Shifting Gears.

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Ford Backtracks

Kromm told Shifting Gears he sent screenshots to Ford and his UAW representative showing a debit card transaction for the cookie purchase. Two weeks later, the union got back to him, stating that Ford was requiring the bank statements to be notarized.

According to Kromm, the union told him that the payment kiosk operator, Aramark, had confirmed to Ford on June 12 that he had paid for the cookie during his shift, and a few days later, Kromm was told he could return to work.

It was too little, too late. Kromm had already found work elsewhere with a raise, going from $48 an hour at Ford to $52.51 plus a $10-per-hour bonus, starting the day after Memorial Day and closer to home. He has since received more than $28,000 in checks for five weeks of lost wages while his termination was under review, short of the $33,000 the UAW told him he would get.

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Carscoops reached out to Ford asking for additional details about the case. Last week, Ford told Shifting Gears that it would not discuss individual cases, but acknowledged “there are times when we look into things and realize it could have been handled differently.”

Spokeswoman Jessica Enoch added, “We value our employees and want to be as fair as possible.” Aramark’s Chris Collom said the company “fully cooperate[s] with investigations of this nature” while staying focused on snack options for its customers.

The Machines Glitch

Coworker Victoria Thomas, a 34-year Ford electrician, said the kiosk glitches are well known and have happened to her. She said, “I have friends who were terminated because they bought a $2 drink. Kurt was the only one who had documentation and he fought it. “