AUSTINTOWN Snyder's opens hiring to all after complaints

By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- They just wanted their jobs back, but laid-off workers who griped about hiring practices at the former Tamco warehouse might have unwittingly decreased their chances of getting hired.
An NAACP official the former employees called in to investigate has advised Snyder's Drug Stores to open hiring to all Mahoning Valley residents, not just those who were furloughed when Phar-Mor ran the center. The Minnesota chain took over the shuttered warehouse last month.
The drugstore chain had planned to open hiring at some point, said Barb Miller, an executive vice president for Snyder's in Minneapolis, but it decided to do so now to cooperate with the NAACP.
Must go through agency
Starting Friday, anyone interested in a job at the Victoria Road warehouse, including former Tamco workers, must apply at the Ohio Bureau of Job and Family Services, she said.
"Obviously, their past job experience will single them out," Miller said. "We want to follow Title 7, which is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that means providing equal opportunity for all qualified persons."
Snyder's has hired 70 employees, all but one of them former Tamco workers, since it signed a 10-year lease for the distribution center on Victoria Road and renamed it Western Wholesale Distribution. The company promised then to hire from the roster of former Tamco employees.
Waymond Cross, an executive board member of the Youngstown branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that practice is discriminatory.
"They have not contacted the Ohio Bureau of Job and Family Services, they have not contacted the Urban League, they have not contacted us at the NAACP about those jobs," Cross said.
"If they want to be an equal opportunity employer, they must afford the community the right to know that those jobs exist and give everybody the right to apply. This way is not good; it's not proper."
Laid-off workers complain
Cross said the NAACP office received between 50 and 60 written complaints from furloughed Tamco workers, black and white, who believed Snyder's hiring methods were violating their civil rights.
"I'm afraid these people might have shot themselves in the foot," said Bob Bernat, secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 377, which represents workers at the distribution center on Victoria Road. He said the former Tamco employees complained to the union, the NAACP and the Urban League mainly because they believe the Snyder's employees charged with hiring were choosing friends and family rather than basing their choices on seniority or past job performance.
Miller said she flew in from Minneapolis on Thursday to investigate those complaints. Snyder's has a policy prohibiting supervisors from having any immediate family member working for them, she said, and the policy is not being violated.
The one person hired so far who is not a former Tamco worker is a Snyder's employee who transferred from Minneapolis to manage the loss-prevention department. Miller said Tamco did not have a comparable person on staff.
Miller said hiring of former Tamco workers was based on "previous work habits," not seniority.
Union can't do anything
Bernat said he feels bad for the laid-off workers who have not been called back, especially those with many years of past service, but the union can't help.
"It's breaking my heart. A lot of them are good workers, and they're getting antsy because their unemployment is running out," Bernat said.
"But it's an inherent right of management to decide who they will hire. The union can't complain. We have a contract for the people who are working, and those people are happy."
He said there's still hope for the furloughed workers awaiting a call back, because Snyder's has said it will bring the work force to 100 in the near future and is expected to employ 150 there eventually.
vinarsky@vindy.com