Latest news with #EatonCorp
Fox News
25-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Iowa man reportedly fired for wearing Bible verse t-shirts during Pride Month settles lawsuit
An Iowa man reached a settlement with his former employer this week after he claimed he was fired for wearing t-shirts with Bible verse messages during the company's celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. Cosby "Corey" Cunningham, a "devout, born-again Christian," filed a religious discrimination lawsuit in federal court last August against Eaton Corp, a global management company, after his firing in August 2023. Cunningham was hired by Eaton in 2019 as a quality assurance manager, where he managed new product development of military and commercial aerospace activities before his termination, according to the lawsuit. His lawsuit says during his employment, Eaton began "increasingly promoting" DEI and LGBTQ support in the workplace. He was allegedly required to attend multiple DEI training sessions, and says he was "singled out" during one training for disagreeing on the use of "woke" pronouns. On June 2, 2023, Eaton initiated a "Pride Month ceremony," where a Pride flag was raised in front of its main building in support of Pride Month. Eaton's management encouraged employees to attend and wear specific colors that day to show their support for the effort. Pride t-shirts were also sold to employees, according to the lawsuit. Cunningham said he began wearing Bible verse t-shirts that day to express his "sincerely held religious beliefs" and to "counter the views that were being coerced by the company on its employees" regarding support for LGBTQ pride. One shirt cited Proverbs 16:18 with the text, "Pride goes before destruction, an arrogant spirit before a fall." Another shirt read, "Taking back the rainbow —Genesis 9:13," with the verse, "I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth," on the back. A third read, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6." On July 20, 2023, Cunningham was called into a meeting with Human Resources ("HR") and told that his shirt was making people "uncomfortable" and one person felt it was "inflammatory toward the LGBTQ community." He met with HR again, one week later, and requested written documentation showing which company policy he was violating by wearing the religious t-shirts. His lawsuit claims Eaton threatened to fire him at this meeting. The following day, he requested, in writing, a religious accommodation to wear the t-shirts, which was denied. He made a second request via a letter to HR, saying he felt he was being "attacked" by his employer over his beliefs. In the following weeks, Cunningham says he was sent home twice after he refused to stop wearing the t-shirts. Eaton fired him on August 23, 2023, saying he had violated their "Harassment-Free Policy." Cunningham filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Iowa Civil Rights Commission before filing his complaint in federal court in August 2024, alleging unlawful religious discrimination by Eaton. According to Cedar Rapids-based KCRG, lawyers for Eaton argued Cunningham was not entitled to any damages because any actions taken by the company against him "were legitimate and non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory," and were based on legitimate business reasons. The case came to a conclusion this week with Eaton and Cunningham reaching an unspecified settlement agreement out of court, according to KCRG. The case was dismissed on May 20, according to court documents. Eaton declined Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Reuters
02-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Electrical equipment maker Eaton cuts 2025 profit forecast on tariff woes
May 2 (Reuters) - Power management company Eaton Corp (ETN.N), opens new tab trimmed its 2025 profit forecast on Friday, citing an impact from the imposition of sweeping U.S. tariffs, sending its shares down 3% in premarket trading. The on-again, off-again tariff policy has spooked businesses across the world, forcing them to reconsider spending on products and look for alternative vendors to avoid added costs. The Reuters Power Up newsletter provides everything you need to know about the global energy industry. Sign up here. Eaton — which makes electrical components for data centers, EV charging, hydraulic motors, valves and pumps — said its new forecast reflects the impact of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, 125% levy on China and the baseline 10% duty rate on all imports, among others. It, however, assumes that the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs will be maintained throughout the year. The Ireland-based company expects 2025 profit to be between $10.29 and $10.69 per share, compared with its previous forecast of $10.60 and $11 per share. Eaton, which counts companies in the aerospace, vehicle, machine building and utility industries among its customers, also lowered its 2025 segment margins forecast to 24%-24.4% from 24.4%-24.8% projected previously. It reported an adjusted profit per share of $2.72 during the first quarter, compared with analysts' average estimate of $2.71, according to data compiled by LSEG. Total revenue for the quarter ended March 31 was $6.38 billion, up 7.3% from a year earlier. Analysts estimated $6.26 billion.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Yahoo
Man Installed "Kill Switch" So That If He Was Ever Fired, All Hell Would Break Loose
For most of us, getting revenge on a company that screwed us over will only ever be a bitter daydream. But when one company messed with the wrong man, he decided to make good on that fantasy, turning it into costly reality. Last week, a Texas-based software developer by the name of Davis Lu was found guilty by a federal jury for maliciously disrupting servers at Eaton Corp, a huge power management firm headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. An employee since 2007, Lu's efforts at digital sabotage started in 2018 when he became frustrated with Eaton's management, which had begun "corporate realignment" — a vague PR term that usually means layoffs are imminent. In this case, Lu's work duties shifted, and he found that his system access had been reduced. Fearing the worst, the software dev hatched a plan straight out of "Tron": he began researching ways to boost his admin privileges, rapidly delete system files en masse, and hide the code that does it. By August 4, 2019, Lu began programming "infinite loops" to intercept logins and delete employee files, codes which he named "Hakai," Japanese for "destruction," and "HunShui," part of the Mandarin idiom "hún shuǐ mō yú," meaning to use the computer to be lazy at work. Cyberslacking, in a word. But his magnum opus was a "kill switch," a string of code called "IsDLEnabledinAD," an abbreviation of "Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory?" The code was dormant so long as the system's response was "yes." But on September 9 of 2019, when Lu was laid off, that answer became "no," causing the code to lock out all other users, throwing the company's operations into chaos. FBI investigators uncovered his handywork by tracing the code back to a server Lu had access to, which was executing the attack via a computer using Lu's login info. He could face up to 10 years in federal prison for his handywork, which the company claimed caused "hundreds of thousands in losses," though Lu's attorneys peg that number closer to $5,000, according to Lu may not know it, but he joins a tradition of like-minded neo-Luddites, a term harkening back to militant worker groups in Britain who smashed shiny new textile machines to protect their jobs from automation. Such groups tend to be disorganized and clustered within Western countries, like the American computer smashers of the late 60s, or the French anarchist cell Action Directe of the late 70s and early 80s. Though typically smeared as Neanderthals scared of progress, Luddites of all stripes have historically been highly-skilled workers whose resistance to tech had more to do with wresting control of it from the grip of capitalists, rather than the equipment itself. One noteworthy group was the Comité Liquidant Ou Détournant Les Ordinateurs (CLODO), a coalition of disgruntled software engineers and tech workers who sabotaged computer centers and nuclear sites throughout southern France in the early 80s. Like Lu, they also made light of their work — "Clodo" is French slang for "bum" — submitting a quippy self-interview with the French magazine Terminal 19/84. "We are essentially attacking what these tools lead to," CLODO says of their sabotage: "files, surveillance by means of badges and cards, instrument of profit maximization for the bosses and of accelerated pauperization for those who are rejected." Though their most public stunts were firebombs and vandalism, CLODO also claimed to engage in more silent forms of destruction on the job: "These actions are only the visible tip of the iceberg! We ourselves and others fight daily in a less ostensible way... we take advantage of [software errors], which undoubtedly costs our employers more than the material damage we cause. We'll only say that the art consists of creating bugs that will only appear later on, little time-bombs." Far from simple technophobes, CLODO and Lu share a much more complicated cause as workers for whom technology represents layoffs, hardship, and dehumanization. As those controlling tech increasingly choose profit over people, it's no wonder workers like Lu are fighting back. More on sabotage: Arsonists Set Fire to a Dozen Teslas, Charging Stations Amid "Anti-Capitalist Coordination to Target Tesla"
