Rehire Disabled Store Clerk Who Was Fired Over Twenty Cents
Kyle Dowie didn't let life get him down. The mentally disabled man worked for 25 years at an Hy-Vee grocery store in Urbandale, Iowa. His job consisted of returning bottles and cans, which many people would consider dull or even dirty. But Dowie took pride in his work and got excellent performance reviews--until he was fired over a twenty cent bottle deposit.
Dowie made a point of retrieving discarded bottle deposit slips for customers--just in case they came back for them. A faithful bottle recycler himself, he was returning his own bottles for a cash-back pittance when someone noted that the deposit slip he presented was not his own. Store operations manager Curt Sills fired Dowie from his job of 25 years over 20 cents.
Dowie's mother says that job, which paid $13 an hour, was Dowie's lifeline.
DesMoines Register columnist Rekha Basu notes that the bottle deposit money isn't even the store's to begin with--it's attached to the bottles. Tell Hy-Vee to rehire Dowie.
We the undersigned are dismayed and saddened that you could be so callous as to fire a disabled man over a twenty cent discrepancy in bottle deposit returns. It's more than likely that Kyle Dowie confused his own receipt with that of a customer. He frequently picked up customer receipts, just in case the customers decided to redeem their bottles later. Firing Dowie was an act of discrimination against the disabled--we demand that he be rehired at the salary he was earning when fired.
