Family feuds aren't necessarily newsworthy. But the one involving Market Basket's Demoulas family was arguably the top local news story of the year. It had a little of everything: a power struggle between brothers, a worker protest that nearly brought down 71 grocery stores, and a resolution that seemed to please everyone.
Thousands of Market Basket workers spent weeks taking turns on a picket line outside Tewksbury headquarters, chanting "Bring Back Artie T." They held colorful signs that read things like “End Corporate Greed” and “Honk for Artie T.” It was one of the most dramatic labor acts in recent history. And it didn’t even involve a union.
“Either they bring him back, we’ll all come back, or they don’t and the company just implodes and we’re not going to have jobs anyway," one of the protesters said on the picket line. "They’ll be nothing. I’m not walking into that building until I know he’s coming back.”
The "he" in question was ousted CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, who’d been fired by the board of directors in a power grab orchestrated by his own cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. Along with many others, corporate secretary Sue Pieslak walked off her job in protest. Pieslak and her husband, Mike, stopped receiving paychecks, risking their careers.
“I started at 16-years-old in Haverhill, the Haverhill Westgate Market Basket, and then at 19 I went up to the main office to be an executive secretary, and that's still what I'm doing," Sue Pieslak said.
"I started at 16 as a sacker in the Chelmsford Market Basket and I’ve just moved up the corporate ladder from there,” Mike Pieslak said.
That was the tradition Arthur T. stood for — that every employee should have to work up the company ladder. And that’s why employees stood by him, also citing his generous benefit and bonus packages. They organized rallies at headquarters and stores. Customers boycotted in solidarity, even plastered windows with receipts from other grocery stores.
“I come here because the prices are reasonable. I like the atmosphere, friendly workers and employees," said Kimberly Jackman of Woburn. "I supported them 100 percent.”
Jackman calls herself a loyal customer who sided with the employees like Mike Pieslak.
“Without these customers this couldn’t work at this point," she said. "We are doing the best we can but the customers are really the ones that are staying out of the stores. So they’re not buying the product. Without them this wouldn’t work at this point. They need a lot of credit.”
Market Basket store shelves were empty for nearly two months, and no one knew what the Demoulas family was doing behind closed doors. Arthur T. remained silent.
“We had a little lull time for awhile.”
That’s an understatement from Mark Gauthier, who managed the Burlington Market Basket, even on days he saw fewer than 100 customers. Store clerks, drivers and warehouse employees had no work. By mid-July the company was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.
"I'm not working, this is as good a place as any to be until we get back to work," said Steve Leathes.
Leathes left the produce warehouse for the picket line. Even as the new CEOs set deadlines to return to work and held a job fair to hire new employees, Leathes didn’t budge.
"It’s just another scare tactic," he said.
Soon the state attorneys general and eventually the governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire got involved. In August, they met with both Arthurs to facilitate a deal. Finally, on August 26, a bid from Arthur T. to buy out his rival family members was accepted. Thousands of employees, some in tears, welcome him back to headquarters the next day.
And like the Wizard of Oz, Arthur T. finally broke his silence.
“You have taught educators, professors, analysts, and CEOs that the workplace here at Market Basket is so much more than just a job," Arthur T. told the crowd.
And he was right. The Market Basket saga has become a case study. Nancy Keohn of the Harvard Business School says Arthur T. is a model leader, but the grocery chain is still recovering.
“Businesses aren’t just profit and loss statements, they’re not just balance sheets," Koehn said. "They’re living, breathing, dynamic entities. And you let a business lose access to its supply chain, alienate itself from its customers, and this goes on. It’s not clear what you’re going to resuscitate and how well.”
Market Basket has come back to life and opened five new stores in the past three months. But ironically, one of the things that most attracted customers, the 4 percent discount promotion it started in January, has come to an end.
