NEW ENGLAND - Employees Strike to Save Job of Company President

Form the annals of greed vs doing what is right.

"Bare shelves for Market Basket as employees and shoppers unite in profit-sharing fight" PBS NewsHour 8/8/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  You almost never see employees hit the streets to save the job of their company’s president.  But that scene is playing out in a most unusual battle in New England this summer, one involving a supermarket chain, a deep family feud, and set against the backdrop of big debates over wages, benefits, corporate profits and inequality.

Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, has the story, part of his ongoing reporting Making Sense of financial news.

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  In Tewksbury, Massachusetts, it was hellishly hot the other day, but that didn’t deter a holy ruckus.

MAN:  Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us today as a new day, even though we find ourselves in the same situation as yesterday, without our true leader, Arthur Demoulas.

PAUL SOLMAN:  That’s Arthur T. Demoulas, former president of Market Basket supermarkets, one of New England’s most successful retailers, with 71 stores, sales of $4.6 billion last year, 25,000 employees with above-average compensation and profit-sharing, and two million customers who enjoy below-industry prices.

But Arthur T. was fired in June by a board of directors controlled by Arthur S. Demoulas, who seems to think his cousin, Arthur T., was spending stockholder money too liberally.  Neither cousin is giving interviews, but the basic fact is clear enough.  The family-owned business has ground to a halt.

In mid-July, truck drivers and warehouse workers walked off their jobs, a non-union strike in support of their employee-friendly leader.