Arthur T set to speak soon (Laurel Sweet/Bos Herald tweet)
Posted on 08/28/2014 4:36:43 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
The uproar over Arthur T. Demoulas' firing prompted massive protest rallies outside the company's Tewksbury headquarters. After the company fired eight supervisors who helped organize the revolt, public support for the workers intensified.
Thousands of customers, as well as more than 160 mayors and legislators in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, signed petitions agreeing to boycott Market Basket. The chain has about 25,000 employees and 71 stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. The stores, usually jam-packed with shoppers attracted by the chain's low prices, have had only a trickle of customers for weeks.
Business analysts said the worker revolt was remarkable at a family-owned, non-union company, particularly because the workers were not seeking higher wages or better benefits, but instead were calling for the return of their CEO. The workers credit Arthur T. Demoulas for treating them like family, keeping prices low and leading the company's success.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
That's at least 5 times as many as Supervalu or other chains.
That can't be correct.
This is the aspect of MA folks that so many don't understand. It's that independent individualist spirit.
A good portion are probably a handful of hours per week - lots of part-time, after-school.
I’m thinking that Arthur-S and his side of the family wanted out at top dollar, but as a jerk, wanted to make sure Arthur-T was hobbled and had a lot less. After 40 days, the damaged company is worth a good deal less, but I suspect the deal did not account for much of the degradation of the strike.
Market Basket is a great Supermarket Chain in New England.
With this infighting publicity they will most certainly gain even more customers when they get up and running again.
Market Basket’s profit margins on products are very low compared to the other Supermarkets around New England.
This Market Basket situation is a fascinating story that will be taught in business schools for years to come. I believe it is unprecedented that both workers and management effectively went "on strike" and urged their customers to boycott the business. Not for higher wages or benefits but simply to restore a beloved CEO who treated them properly.
This is not a union thing. In fact, the MB workers spurned all attempts by pinky-ringed union thugs to unionize them. Instead, all workers and management, along with most of their loyal customer base, worked together to right a wrong with no threats, no communist union propaganda and no demands to be paid more than what their labor is worth. I think it's refreshing.
Market basket has a lot of young employees but they all seemed to work pretty hard. They also have families employed there usually families of immigrants. I would say it is a melting pot, although not perfect (still some language issues).
the spirit that keep electing the likes of Ted Kennedy, gun grabbing governors like Duval Patrick and voted themselves socialized medicine and that has one of the highest tax burdens in the civilized world.. that one?
“that independent individualist spirit”
And yet they have little problem with government and the collective controlling more and more.
When I lived in NH, I loved Market Basket. They had a lot of little things we could not get in the larger chains and their prices on seafood and cold cuts were fantastic.
And they say boycotts don’t work.
Every dollar spent is a vote. There’s a way for conservatives to use those votes.
With all those shelves empty, there certainly wouldn’t be a lot of inventory to pay for.
this was six years ago, not during the strike..
Weird isn’t it? I think it’s that on the local community level people seem to like “hands off” their personal lives. This was about where they shop everyday and the way the company interacts with communities and employees. It gets local, it gets personal.
So, essentially it was a family feud over control of the business.
Why?
You might be surprised at the moderate spirit outside Boston proper. The state is fairly purple outside of the 495 band.
Why?
Because IMHO Arthur-S couldn't care less about the health of the company as long as his share was safe. His side owns 51%. If he could get a buyout of his 51%, he would be happy with a scorched-earth that left Arthur-T with embers and a wrecked company. This family is broken, and seems to have taken a Hatfield-McCoy type of feuding. It's "I want what is mine, as much of what is yours should be mine, and whatever I can't have, I'll try and make sure you can't get"
The company was losing $10 mil per day, and "negotiations" dragged on and on and on. Having it go this long, a function of Arthur-S dumping meetings and dumping proposals were the tools to manipulate this strategy.
The people who vote for those things aren't Market Basket's primary customers, except those using EBT cards in some communities. The wealthy liberals that support Duval Patrick shop at Whole Foods, not Market Basket.
Just like a lot of other states, concentrations of urban voters outnumber more sensible rural and suburban voters. See New York for another example.
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