I not sure if this story has gotten a lot of national coverage but it's a big story up here in New England. It involves a grocery store chain called Market Basket, which operates 71 store in Mass and Nh. To give you some background on the company it started as a single store in Lowell, Ma about a 100 years ago by a Greek immigrant named Demoulas. During the 1950-70s his two sons took over and grew the chain. But when they died their heirs have been in a bitter dispute over control of the company. One side took the other side to court claiming they were being cheating out of their cut and eventually won and were given a 51% share of the company. During this time expansion of the chain stopped and many of their stores were outdated. Since this decision the side that lost still had control of the company's board of directors and under Arthur T. Demoulas the chain started growing again and because they have some of the lowest grocery prices in the country they have absolutely been dominating the market up here. Here in nh they forced the big chain Stop N Shop to pull out of the state and another big chain called Shaws has had to close many of their stores, do mass layoffs, etc and are barely hanging on. I work for a major company that sells its products in grocery stores and I can tell you that even though MB gives us the least support and space their stores still sell 2 to 4 times what these other chains sell. Their stores are crazy busy. If it wasn't for their prices I wouldn't shop there because it's so crowded but I do because it saves me $50 or more a week. walmart can't even beat their prices. Anyways, very successful company over the last 10 years and they pay their employees well and keep them. Well recently the other side of the family, under Arthur S. Demoulas has taken control of the board of directors and fired Arthur T. As the CEO and many of his key people. It is believed he wants to sell the company or at least raise the prices and reduce the benefits to the employees. Starting last week the 25,000 employees and all the management have organized a revolt against Arthur S., the BOD, and their new co CEOs, one a former Albertsons exec. and one a former Radio Shack CEO. I should note they aren't union and are not asking for better pay/benefits. All they are demanding is that Arthur T. Be reinstated as the head of the company. They have staged mass rallys in the thousands, they have been picketing in front of their stores and asking customers to boycott shopping there and sign petitions. Their drivers have been refusing to deliver their shipments to the stores and now they are pretty much empty. Despite threats and some more firings of higher ups involved in the protest it has continued. Over 100,000 customers have sign their petition vowing to never shop there again unless Arthur T. Is brought back and even the local politicians seem to be behind the employees. Well a few days ago Arthur T. made an offer to buy his cousin out and the board met yesterday on it. However since Arthur T. wasnt reinstated yesterday and all they said was they would consider the offer along with any others the walk out will apparently continue. This is unheard of in this country and we are seeing history being made with this. http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80901376/ http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/news/ci_26221515/market-basket-saga-crowds-grow
