Hmm. I can kind of understand both sides, though I choose to side with Barbara.

"That case was decided on Tuesday, with a Bundesarbeitsgericht (state labor court) in Berlin upholding the grocery chain's right to dismiss her. The argumentation being that a company has every right to fire an employee after "an irreparable breach of trust." "

Irreparable breach of trust... for stealing $1.66? She's been there for 31 years, can't they look back and check her record and see she's done nothing else? However, $1.66 is easy enough to miss... what if she'd been stealing $1 a month, here and there without being noticed, for 31 years?

My opinion: She should have been penalized, and been put back into almost like training... having a manager keep a close eye on her, have every cent that passes through her hands closely monitored, etc. She'd been an employee for 31 years, that's long enough for the company to take out the time and resources to do something like that to give her a chance.

"That same day, Bild Zeitung quoted Kaiser's -- company slogan Here Beats The Heart -- Regional Manager Tobias Tuchlenski "I can't understand why she stole from us. We have 5,000 employees in Berlin. Imagine what would happen if all of them stole €1.30 every day?" "

He's got a point, that they have to set a standard and show all employees that this was unacceptable behavior. However, I still say that it was too harsh... penalize her, dock it from her pay, put her back under training, whatever... but don't fire her on the spot for such a small first offense after 31 years worth of loyalty.

"Barbara E. herself believes that the true reason behind her dismissal was her outspokenness, and her participation in a strike at Kaiser's, end of 2007."

That's probably the case. That ticked them off and they were looking for an excuse to legitimately fire her. But again, that's only opinion.

Bottom line: What she did was wrong, but their reaction to fire her on the spot was wrong as well.
Source(s):
http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=09/02/27/22494573

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