To those saying they weren't expecting this turn in the story:
I'm actually surprised this didn't appear to be a possibility to many in the other thread. When he was out of work for that long, I wondered if something else could have prevented him from finding a job, like something he did at ND. It's happened to people I know: workers who messed up, didn't do well, etc. That person would leave, get terminated, what have you, said person would try to find another job, and then when prospective employers called their previous employer, they'd decide not to hire. That there are work-related issues ND employees are alleging seemed a reasonable possibility.
Of course, I'd also caution people not to automatically jump on this, either, in relation to Ballard, and I'd also urge people to read the whole article and not just snippets.