Ardor For Arthur- The Sequel

Market Basket's flagship store in Chelsea, MA. Photo by Cybah (own work), public domain.

Market Basket’s flagship store in Chelsea, MA. Photo by Cybah (own work), public domain.

Last month, we wrote about the Demoulas cousins and Market Basket, a chain of 71 supermarkets in the Northeast. We told how both employees and customers protested the firing of Arthur T. Demoulas by the Market Basket board of directors. The reason for the firing? The board, led by Arthur S. Demoulas, thought that Arthur T. spent too much on the employees instead of maximizing profits for the shareholders.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Arthur T. would buy the 50.5 percent of the company owned by Arthur S. and his supporters for $1.5 billion, thus ending the six week strike/boycott that had essentially shut down the company. On Thursday, the warehouse workers, store employees and management who’d been out on strike went back to work, and the customers started coming back.

Lauren Stiller Rikleen wrote an excellent piece for Next Avenue calling the Market Basket strikes and protests an example of boomer activism. She pointed out that many of the people involved were people who’d been with the company for years, and that they had everything to lose in this situation, but that they went ahead and made a stand based on principle, and not for any immediate gain for themselves

Occupy World Writes congratulates Arthur T. Demoulas and Market Basket employees for prevailing over a board that was more concerned with short term stockholder profit than the employees’ welfare. We’ve learned from your example that when we stand united for a common cause, we can and will prevail. We know that the business has taken a big hit over the last six weeks; we hope for a speedy recovery.

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This entry was posted in Demonstrations & Protests, Economics, Human Spirit, Social Justice, Solidarity and tagged , on by .

About ew

ew came of age during the winddown to the Vietnam War, and like many other Americans, as soon there wasn't an issue that didn't affect him personally, he became indifferent. This gradually changed during the Reagan and Bush I years, continued through the Clinton years and finally came to a head with the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. He works as a freelance consultant/tester for various music hardware and software companies, and lives in Minnesota.

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