Basu: 20-cent 'theft' leads to firing of disabled worker

There are some situations in which almost any comment would seem superfluous. This may be one of them.






A complaint was filed this week with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission on behalf of a 43-year-old mentally disabled man from Clive, who was fired in November from a Hy-Vee supermarket after 25 years there. According to the complaint, he was accused of theft for trying to cash in 20 cents worth of bottle-deposit credits that a manager claimed were not his.


Kyle Dowie’s job involved handling bottles and cans brought in for redemption to the Urbandale Hy-Vee on 86th Street. His mother, Jean Ann Johnson, said her son has at times picked up credit slips left in the recycling machines by customers, thinking they might come back for them. On Nov. 2, while redeeming $3.75 worth of bottles brought from home, she said he fished an additional 20 cents worth of credits dated in September out of his pocket and presented them for payment.






The civil rights complaint, which alleges discrimination based on his disability, says the store’s operations manager, Curt Sills, accused Dowie of stealing the 20 cents and fired him.






Dowie’s statement says, “I am mentally retarded, but Hy-Vee did not take that into account when ending my employment over twenty cents.”


According to Johnson, Sills also accused Dowie — with no evidence — of going to other Hy-Vee stores to cash in receipts, which Dowie denies doing. His mother said he had been written up before for redeeming unclaimed credit slips, though the most recent time was eight years ago.


She said he’s honest but has gotten confused about slips he was holding. He has consistently gotten excellent
performance reviews, she said.


Hy-Vee isn’t talking, citing confidentiality in personnel matters. But Dowie’s lawyer, Brooke Timmer, calls it “one of those cases that just gets my blood boiling.”


If the facts are as claimed, where is the crime here? So what if the employee took a few dimes worth of unclaimed redemptions? It’s not like it was the store’s money to begin with.