Moral Failings

Tamco Distributors was formed when the Giant Eagle {Team Benefits} grocery chain bought competitor Valu King along with their distribution wing the Tamarkin Company. Executives from the two companies decided to form a new concept drug store. The concept of “Power Buying”, buying lots of stuff at a steep discount to undercut the competition, was expressed through the Phar-Mor chain.

Phar-Mor ⇒ would become the Enron ⇒ of the early 90s. Mickey Monus ⇒, Chief Executive Officer, was found to be embezzling. Two sets of books were maintained to fool suppliers and Phar-Mor’s own board. The money was used to bankroll an entourage for Monus, an attempt to buy Major League Baseball’s ⇒ Colorado Rockies ⇒, and to prop up the semi-professional World Basketball League ⇒ with it’s height restriction of 6’7″ and below.

Tamco was sold and eventually re-branded as Western Distributors. Labor union Teamster Local 377 ⇒ was retained throughout Tamco’s existence, and on through Western Distributors. In typical shady Youngstown style, a lawsuit materialized out of thin air at the end of Tamco’s existence. The suit was settled within a day. The decision allowed for the union head and one manager to cherry-pick who could report to work at Western Distributors out of sequence from the union’s Master List. Shame that the local proved to have weak leadership that was too cozy with management to fulfill the reason for having the union around in the first place.

Sugar Water

This shirt was awarded to workers that did not incur any safety violations over a period of time. On one hand, it is good to be rewarded for doing the work that one was going to do anyway. Obviously, the rewards were of magnitudes cheaper than the rising cost of insurance or workman’s compensation claims. Real incentives like raises, interesting work, or not treating employees poorly would provide more than enough incentive for most workers to perform their jobs in a safe manner.

Donor Father* gave me this shirt because he was a safe worker that did not want to wear this shirt. He did wear sweatshirts of with this design. I remember those had the design embroidered rather than screened.

Shirts were not the only proof of safety pride that was around the house. I still have a Tamco frisbee. Multiple Tamco water bottles went unused in the basement until we ended up selling some at a garage sale. I also recall pencils and notepads with the Tamco logo were around the house. There surely was other free stuff that I do not recall.

Outside of stuff, tickets to the WBL’s Youngstown Pride ⇒ home games with complimentary hot dogs and drinks were experiences earned through safety pride. I most clearly remember a Winnipeg Thunder ⇒ vs. Pride game where I saw a tall man in a spiffy suit attempting to scalp his extra tickets outside of the Pride’s home court Beeghly Center ⇒ on the campus of Youngstown State University {Dump N’ Run Volunteer, Summer Festival Of The Arts, Welcome Week 2003, Welcome Week 2004, and 70th Annual Art Show}{} (⇒). The scalper turned out to be the singer of both the Star-Spangled Banner ⇒ and O Canada ⇒ that night.

It Won’t Wash

The stains on the shirt were incurred during a previous dishwashing job at least five years before the conception of the Free Shirt Archive. Clearly, I should have thought before I went in to work wearing a prized free shirt. The constant reminder will remain on this shirt for the rest of the shirt’s service life. Yes, I still wear this shirt, but not outside the house.