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The Somerville Market Basket

The Somerville Market Basket this afternoon was a pretty sad place -- employees outside telling shoppers not to shop there; signs all over the store inside urging us to write to various e-mail addresses for the CEOs and independent members of the board of directors; produce shelves nearly empty except for bananas; dairy cooler aisle starting to visibly thin out in products like yogurt and cottage cheese.

The packaged goods in the middle of the store still looked reasonably well-stocked, and the bread aisle was quite full.

I left without buying anything, even though I needed orange juice and they still had that. I'm not going to shop in a store when the employees are asking me not to.

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Thank you for the update.

If the strike was because of employees not being paid for hours worked, for a culture of sexual harassment of employees, or safety issues, I could understand. But just because employees like one boss (who has perhaps been a little shady by the way) more than another? And now the company is at risk because employees perceive they'll get a better deal with a different guy at the helm? I don't know, doesn't seem right to me. (But if we got a Trader's Joe's in that location, I wouldn't complain!)

Consider that the side of the family now in power are the kind of people who do this:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2010/01/13/squeezed-back-bay-tycoon-aging-professor-may-yet-prevail/5Vp9hDs0iPNStPaVSFoj9K/story.html

It's hard for me to keep track, but isn't this the Arthur T. side of the family (the ones who just got forced out)?

I'm pretty sure not; people were talking about boycotting because of it, and other people pointed out it was the other side of the family.

Frances Demoulas Kettenbach and Arthur T Demoulas are both children of the late Telemachus ('Mike') Demoulas. His side is the one who lost the huge court case in the 1990s and had two lawyers disbarred (one of whom, Gary Crossen, was co-defendant with Frances in your Globe article)

It's all very confusing.

Edited 2014-07-23 15:52 (UTC)

more about Michael Kettenbach. Good guy to help run a grocery chain, even while also an evil residential property owner?

You lost me when you started blaming Arthur T for Mike's shadiness.

Arthur T didn't come out of this looking very good.

(despite that, he's still the good guy worth supporting right now)

Edited 2014-07-23 16:07 (UTC)

You lost me when you put words in my mouth.

They're not on strike (it's not a unionized company). It's a voluntary walkout at HQ in Tewksbury. Most employees at the stores themselves are still working. The direction that the new management wants to go in involves taking more money out of the company for the family and taking on debt. I'm of the opinion—as are many people who have been following this story—that it would be bad for customers as well as employees because it would lead to higher prices. Market Basket has been very successful without resorting to the low wages and high prices of national chains. Why mess with a business model that's working? That's what people, employees and customers, are so upset about.

Different world views. To me if an employee doesn't like the direction the company is going, the moral course of action is to find a job elsewhere and give 2 weeks notice. I've had to do that a few times in my life and once I was laid off and it wasn't fun. But to actively sabotage a company doesn't seem just to me.

I'm sympathetic any time someone's job, friendship or marriage doesn't work out the way it used to, but I wouldn't support them lashing out at the other entity under these types of circumstances.

So everyone at Market Basket should give notice and stop working there? Because this is more than just a bad supervisor in one part of the company—it's signs that the entire company is moving in a direction that many people, and not just employees, find objectionable. Market Basket has been a good place to work, and it's unrealistic to expect that many people to just go find new jobs. And what are customers supposed to do? In Somerville there are other places to shop, but in the Merrimack Valley and large parts of New Hampshire in particular, MB is the major player. In Haverhill, for example, there are no other supermarkets, so if Market Basket is no longer an option or it becomes very expensive under the new management team, then a lot of people are up a creek.

No not all employees, just the ones who don't like the changes that come and find a better opportunity. If the owners of Market Basket are so stupid as to lower wages or change things in the future to the point that a large percentage of employees started quitting, they would be forced to reverse course quickly or watch their company die. There is no social contract that once an organization has provided something generous, they must do it forever. That's how I feel, I understand most posters on this board feel such a social contract does exist. If I owned a company in this environment I'd feel nervous about offering generous benefits for fear of being vilified if they were ever withdrawn.

If customers don't like the company's compensation package to employees or prices, they are free to make the choice to drive farther or have groceries delivered. No one is forcing residents of Merrimack Valley to do so.

I think this situation is a little different from that. My understanding of the situation is two-fold, first that the employees considered Arthur T to be a friend, as well as a good employer, and second that they foresee Arthur S et al. wanting to asset strip Market Basket leaving them without work anyway. This second part seems to be related to the distribution of the 300 million dollars to the family members, leaving the company to buy on credit, which it sounds like is a different model that would require other structural changes and put the company at greater risk. I'm guessing that they are thinking that they will be jobless in a year anyway, so might as well stick up for Mr. T.

There are other complications as well, regarding the family history, the new CEO's (and one of the CEO's relationship to Radio Shack's demise - though it's not clear he was really responsible for that) and also the new CEO's early actions at the Indian Ridge Country Club attempting to fire management that was loyal to A.T. (http://www.boston.com/business/news/2014/06/27/market-basket-turmoil-hits-country-club/T54ZVEaSovA1jYbeiwgN9H/story.html) - which may be another reason why the MB folks figure they have nothing to lose.

The story is pretty rich (no pun intended), and I think, a little more complex then just "if you don't like your job, quit."

That's an unnecessarily nihilistic and reductionist view. You reject out of hand the possibility of a company being anything other than simple bunch of purely transactional relationships that nobody ever cares about or should care about, just get what they want if it'll give it to them. Most people don't think that way, and I'm so very very glad of that. A world where the view you're expressing were dominant would be a significantly worse one that I am happy I don't live in. When people can care about something and cooperate to protect or guide it, whether it's a company or a city or a nonprofit or a club or a family or any other kind of entity, that's on balance a good thing. If you don't care about it you can ignore it, but actually thinking badly of people for doing so and criticizing them for it on principle, feels to me deeply world-damaging as a point of view.

Leaving a company when you don't like which direction it's turning is a legitimate choice and may often be a reasonable one, but there's nothing "moral" about labeling that the only valid choice. On the contrary, I think condemning people for not making that choice is what is immoral.

We were at the burlington one over the weekend and I wondered why the produce shelves we're starting to look so thin. It was before I heard what was going on, and all the employees I saw were cheerful (and happy to make faces at the baby). But yeah.

Can someone give me a quick explanation of what's going on with Market Basket? I somehow missed the beginning of the whole shebang.

Here's some of the history:

http://gloucesterclam.com/2014/07/21/clamsplainer-market-baskets-storied-history-of-crazy/

I was about to post the above link, to a blog written by

kpht. Here's part 2:

http://gloucesterclam.com/2014/07/22/clamsplainer-market-basket-is-freakin-out/

This Market Basket thing makes the Israeli/Palestinian mess look tame, and that's almost not hyperbole.

I like the description I read that said it was "some Game of Thrones level of shit going on."

When you play the game of groceries ...

and here's part 3.

Thanks, Ron! :)

I was at the Somerville one last night. The cereal aisle was becoming pretty empty as was the dog food aisle and a few others. It's usually packed in there with customers especially at night. There is usually no parking. Last night there was plenty of parking and no many customers. It's so sad. I'm the kind of person and compared prices everywhere, having grown up a poor Somerville kid. And I can say nowhere did I get deals like at Market Basket. I've been reading one of the Facebook groups for market basket and there have been quite a few personal stories of how the former CEO helped out employees when they were down. Not higher up employees either, I'm talking naggers and cashiers.

The ousted CEO was a good employer. Market Basket had loyal, long-term employees who were paid well (with longevity bonuses.) Although they were not unionized, it was a good place to work. The shake-up in management bodes poorly enough for workers that they risked losing their jobs over it.

Well said.

I noticed the produce aisle at Somerville Market Basket looking a little thin even this past weekend. I am sure it is much worse now, but I will be boycotting the store for the near future in support of the workers and their protest.

Market Basket is my go to store for groceries even though I live much closer to the Stop & Shop at Mystic and McGrath. Market Basket certainly has its' quirks and is far from perfect, but I must say I really like the place. Many of my neighbors refuse to shop there, but the place has grown on me a lot and it is one of the few actual brands that I make an effort to support. The prices at Market Basket are unbeatable compared to other local grocers and the employees generally seem knowledgable and happy. They do also tend to carry a wider selection of ethnic foods and interesting meat cuts/seafood than other local grocery stores as well.

I feel bad for the long time workers at the stores and also I am concerned that the Market Basket that I know and love today, will soon no longer be recognizable. I used to work at Foodmaster many years ago and not that I enjoyed working there all that much, I was still sad to see the chain chopped up and sold off to the highest bidder. I know most here won't agree with me, but I much preferred the old dingy carpeted Foodmaster on Beacon to the shiny new Whole Foods that exists there today. Not everybody wants or can afford organic/grass-fed/free-range etc., some people just want good quality fresh food at a reasonable price. Market Basket filled that niche very well as evidenced by all the people shopping at the Somerville store, even commuting there by taxi from neighboring towns.

The Demoulas family certainly has a lot of drama going on in the background, but I hope the employees and the customers do not have to pay the price if they can not come to some kind of satisfactory agreement about running the stores going forward.

Edited 2014-07-23 20:50 (UTC)

I feel the same way as you about Market Basket. I love shopping there despite a lot of my friends complaining that it's too stressful or whatever -- yes it is usually a zoo, but if you get yourself into the right frame of mind, it's worth it. The prices are consistently lower than anywhere else on almost everything I buy, and the quality of the produce is consistently better. So it makes me sad to boycott, but I'm doing so in support of the workers. I really hope the whole thing gets resolves before it's too late.

It's also fascinating to me to see this story starting to get national attention. I've got Facebook friends posting about it who live at the other end of the country -- they don't know the whole backstory, they've never been to a Market Basket in their lives, but they just read an article about it and found it an interesting labor-relations story.

We're in a brave new post-union world, and a lot of people are interested in what the labor movement will look like with unions the weakest they have been since... ever.

I was at the Somerville Market Basket today (Wednesday) around 2 pm. Employees where picketing outside while many workers where still working inside. Customers where shopping but I would say it was only at 20% of the normal volume. There was plenty of stock in the middle of the store but much less, if anything on the perimeter. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out, both sides are very entrenched!

Sorry Ron, but this doesn't sound like a "sad place" to me. It sounds like a place where employees are standing up for what they want their workplace to continue to be. It sounds like they care about their customers enough to risk their jobs. Three cheers for Market Basket employees and their principles!

I don't think we actually disagree; we've just chosen different words to describe the same thing. I hope there is a happy outcome.

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The Somerville Market Basket

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It is about treating workers well

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Market Basket

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