Support pours in for fired Walmart employee who redeemed $5.10 of cans

[KamaAina]

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Walmart-fires-East-Greenbush-employee-for-6642073.php

A Times Union story about a Walmart employee fired from his job for redeeming $5.10 worth of empty cans and bottles he found discarded in the parking lot sparked widespread outrage and is gaining traction nationally via social media....

This groundswell of civic action was touched off by a Times Union story Thursday about Smith, 52, who liked his job gathering shopping carts from the vast parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter here, where customers often left trash and empty drink containers.

Smith picked up the garbage for more than two months until Nov. 6, when he was fired for redeeming $5.10 worth of empty cans and bottles he found discarded on two occasions.

He was called into the security office and interrogated by a manager and two security staff members.

[jdadd]

1. Assholes!!!

Walmart, and store security.... Not the supporters of the fired Employee...

[Warpy]

2. Good, I'm glad people are supporting him

especially since he's formerly homeless and working very hard to drag himself out of a very deep hole.

Walmart management, from the store managers on up to the heirs, should all eat shit sandwiches and die.

[jonno99]

3. Unless there is some "backstory" that we're not being told about this employee, then this seems a

travesty indeed.

note: there is some suggestion in the comments section that recyclables were supposed to be collected for a local charity. But who know if this is true, and/or if the guy had been previously "counseled" on this matter...

[saturnsring]

4. and to make things worse

Smith, who is African-American, contacted prisoner advocate Alice Green at the Center for Law and Justice in Albany. She took up Smith's cause after hearing his account that alleged racial discrimination. During his interrogation, the manager told Smith that a store cashier, who is white, was caught on camera stealing $20 from a cash register and stuffing it into her bra. The cashier paid the money back and was not terminated because she has five kids.