I feel your pain. I used to see the same sort of thing from time to time at employers I've had in the past.
Here's a good one for you, at my current employer: We ended up with a new maintenance manager a couple of years ago. He decided that the mechanics did not need a heavy bench with a nice large Wilton vise on it. So the whole bench got cut up and placed in the scrap bin, vise and all. The bench grinder got tossed out too, a nice 10" Delta. They also had a nice Ellis horizontal bandsaw that suddenly quit working. It needed a motor, and the new manager being a self proclaimed expert decided that we no longer needed such a saw and that it should be disposed of. Sure enough, a number of people (including yours truly) offered to purchase the derelict saw, but instead one of the employees (who the new manager has taken an extreme liking to) got to take it home for free!
Advance the clock 18 months and now the shop has a new shop built steel bench and a brand new Ellis bandsaw. The same manager suddenly had a change of heart for who knows what reason.
The truck-trailer shop used to have a man-lift so the mechanics could work safely on the upper portions of the trailers. The maintenance manager decided that the processing plant needed the man lift more than the truck shop does, so now the man lift sits in the plant, rarely if ever used. Over the last couple of years the truck shop mechanics have placed several requests for a man lift, but they were told that they don't need one, and that ladders are just fine. Two weeks ago one of the trailer mechanics fell off of a 12 foot ladder while working on the lights at the top rear of the trailer, suffering broken bones and other injuries. Guess what suddenly showed up in the trailer shop yesterday?? I won't tell you, because the answer is just to obvious, but I can tell you that it has shiny new paint!