40 days and 40 Nights: A Most Unusual Victory at Market Basket
By Rand Wilson and Peter Olney
After a weekend of last minute haggling and prolonged negotiations, a settlement of the Market Basket dispute was announced Wednesday night bringing to a close one of the most dramatic and inspiring labor struggles in the United States in many a year. The settlement was not immediately about wages or benefits or job security language. These employees don’t even have a union! The settlement was about who would be their boss and CEO. In a highly unusual management-led action, they paralyzed the company’s 71 stores and promoted a devastating consumer boycott to get previously fired CEO Arthur T. Demoulas back and they won.
Most of the 25,000 workers from part-time checkers to big shot regional managers will be returning to work immediately. In fact, during most of the dispute, most of the checkers and in-store personnel worked, converting their stores and parking lots into protest platforms where the few remaining customers were engaged in intense discussions about the MB dispute. Where once the walls of a store were adorned with promotional ads, now they were decked-out with signs extolling the virtues of “Arthur T.” and their desire to maintain his business model over his cousin Arthur S. The strike was a strategic one by a combination of key workers in trucking and warehousing and top and middle managers whose industrial actions prevented any perishables from reaching the stores. Market Basket became nothing but a big dry goods chain.
Threats of firing and numerous “drop dead” days for employees to return to work came and went, virtually ignored by the workforce that was out. The power of a united and strategic workforce acting forcefully with broad consumer support rocked the whole of Eastern Massachusetts and its 30 stores in New Hampshire and Maine.
Would the workers have been better off in a union? Yes, of course. There is no substitute for the power and voice that collective bargaining provides for workers. Yet, the great irony here is that if Market Basket workers had been in a union, it’s nearly impossible to imagine them striking to restore their fired boss and defeat the Wall Street business model of his cousin Arthur S. A no strike clause and the narrow post WW II vision of our labor unions would surely have prevented that.
We should also point out that warehouse and trucking is usually with the Teamsters in unionized grocery stores. Often the decision to respect UFCW picket lines is not always forthcoming or impossible because of contract language.
An NLRB charge was filed by several employees arguing that the company’s threats against them constituted a violation of their Section 7 rights to protest and redress their “wages, hours and working conditions.” If a settlement hadn’t been reached, a National Labor Relations Board Administrative law judge would have had to rule on whether the discharge of the CEO constituted a “unilateral change in working conditions!” The employees certainly saw that it did — and put their own lives on the line because they saw their own conditions inextricably bound up with who was their CEO.
Below are some lessons from this extraordinary struggle that we draw for the rest of the labor movement:
● Not all workers pack an equal punch – Strategic workers in trucking and warehousing are crucial to interrupting the flow of goods, particularly perishables. Current labor laws (especially in the private sector) exclude many of the most strategic workers making meaningful strike activity much harder.
● Management rights are workers’ rights – Unfortunately not since the UAW’s Walter Reuther has the U.S. labor movement sought any real say over operating and management decisions. Instead, we’ve surrendered to the narrow “management rights” clause written into virtually every union contract. Yet, these decisions, as the MB workers demonstrated, are crucial to the livelihood of workers.
● A real strike stops production – Campaigns at Wal-Mart and in fast food have called the exit of a handful of workers from stores and fast food outlets “strikes.” But most have failed to stop production. Market Basket workers (management and labor) engaged in a true “strategic strike” and the camera shots of empty shelves and empty stores were a compelling image that needed no virtual enhancement or Facebook ‘likes’ to be real.
● Community support is key – The depth of support in the massive boycott where customers taped their receipts from Stop and Shop, Whole Foods and Hannaford’s to the windows of Market Basket was an essential part of the victory. For many customers this was a deep hardship, but the passion and energy of the workers and Market Basket’s low prices underlay consumer’s commitment to stay away until victory.
Union or “not-yet-union,” one fundamental lesson is that there are no shortcuts to deep organizing at the point of production. Labor strategists and organizers who are impatient with that process and believe that social media and corporate leverage can substitute for the basics are doomed to failure.
Following this monumental struggle, Market Basket and its workers will never be the same. To reach a settlement, Arthur T. enlisted the notorious private equity firm, Blackstone Group to buy one third of the company. As a result, the Market Basket culture and its manager’s paternalistic practices may significantly change. Meanwhile, Market Basket’s workers expectations have never been higher and the sense of their power – even without the managers’ support – can’t be denied. The vast majority of workers are part-time and low paid. The UFCW is actively reaching out to enlist support. Stay tuned because there is undoubtedly much more to come!
Two quibbles:
1. You say that respecting picket lines is sometimes impossible under Teamster contracts but from what I have seen, contract language in most Teamster contracts, including UPS and Master Freight, is generally excellent in terms of respecting primary picket lines at customer facilities — although it may be true that a local Teamsters Union or Joint Council sometimes instructs drivers not to exercise their rights.
2. If a settlement had not been achieved and the case went to the NLRB the issue would not have been whether the employer committed a unilateral change. That issue would be irrelevant since Market Basket had no obligation to give notice or bargain with its nonunion workforce. The legal issue that would have been raised was whether employees who joined the strike could be fired since, as a general rule, activities aimed at the selection of supervisors or managers are not protected by Section 7.
Everything else was spot on!
Pingback: A Most Unusual Victory at Market Basket
I went to Market Basket to shop right after the boycott started. I was skeptical: Why should these employees care whether a millionaire CEO loses his job?
No one bothered me when I entered the store, they were polite inspite of my skepticism. I decided not to buy anything and went back and questioned the motives of the picketers. They were courteous and clearly unified, I could find no middle of the roaders or supporters of the board of directors.
I ended up joining the boycott and leaving with a lot of respect for a group of people sacrificing their earnings for a person they believed in.
As consumers we also loved Market Basket, as it had by far the lowest prices, and some of the nicest stores. This was a win win situation for everyone except the board members who had fired Artie.
I want to respond to the two “uncertainties” that John Bowman raises. First I think that we are saying that the power of the MB story is that it was a strategic strike that paralyzed production and engaged a very successful consumer boycott. It was on that basis that the media was engaged and very powerfully so. The “leverage” in this case was the complete paralysis of the business. A union contract would guarantee in writing the wages and conditions of the workers so that they are not at the whim and caprice of a new owner. But as many have pointed out including JJ La Fitch below, this was a struggle waged by workers and their supervisors without a union and in some ways benefited from not having some of the legal shackles of present day contract unionism.
Second, we can only speculate on what deals Arthur T may have made to get the capital necessary to complete the deal. We shall see how things play out.
I want to respond to the two “uncertainties” that John Bowman raises. First I think that we are saying that the power of the MB story is that it was a strategic strike that paralyzed production and engaged a very successful consumer boycott. It was on that basis that the media was engaged and very powerfully so. The “leverage” in this case was the complete paralysis of the business. A union contract would guarantee in writing the wages and conditions of the workers so that they are not at the whim and caprice of a new owner. But as many have pointed out including JJ La Fitch below, this was a struggle waged by workers and their supervisors without a union and in some ways benefited from not having some of the legal shackles of present day contract unionism.
Second, we can only speculate on what deals Arthur T may have made to get the capital necessary to complete the deal. We shall see how things play out.
Thanks Rand and Peter for a thoughtful analysis, with which I agree. I just wanted to report an observation about consumer support for the boycott. I had not been a Market Basket customer (though may become one in the future), but many people I know through my local non-political networks of all kinds were Market Basket regulars, supported the boycott, and hoped that Market Basket would reopen without changing its previous culture. Many of them were by no means supporters of unions. It has occurred to me that some of these people complained of having to switch to a (UFCW-organized) Stop&Shop, but I doubt if they would boycott that store if there were a UFCW-sanctioned strike. I discussed this observation with a UFCW shop steward at the Stop&Shop, who strongly agreed that his union had not tried to proactively reach consumers, and that for him Market Basket demonstrated that unionized workers had to positively communicate their own union culture.
Nice work, gents. Here’s another to say some of the things you said.
Critical to stopping “production” were the full time, technically managerial/foreman roles – produce and warehouse supervisors etc. So many of the other workers are part-time (estimated at 20/25000) that they are smaller cogs…..
Here’s the interesting part, esp. since you mention Reuther. One of the early defeats – as you guys know well – in the interpretation and 1947 amendment of the Wagner act was the exclusion of foreman from NLRA coverage.
This then is another implication of the post-NLRB labor world: organize supervisors!
Robert J.S. Ross, PhD
Research Professor of Sociology and
The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610
Sorry Union boys, if Market Basket were union, this job action NEVER would have started! The walkout of the warehouse and office workers would have been considered a wildcat strike – PROHIBITED and not protected by any union. The UNION leadership would force the workers to go back to work! This would be a violation of their union contract with Market Basket! The inital firing of Artie T on June 23,2014 has no bearing on any union contract. Sorry, the Union contract would be lined up with Arthur S – forcing workers back to work. Don’t try to paint it any other way. Nice try – but BIG FAIL – trying to claim a union would have helped – FALSE.
Congratulate the MB workers – but they did it all without a Union. Don’t you dare claim any form of credit, or that a union would have somehow improved the situation!
I found your discussion of the Market Basket situation most interesting. But I was left with two “uncertainties”by the end. You seem to be saying that, despite the apparently pro-worker outcome of this particular action, you feel that such approaches (I.e. using the media and “corporate leverage”) is not really a substitute for organizing unions. And then you point out that by bringing in a hard-nosed hedge fund, it remains to be seen whether the basic practices of Arthur T. will remain in place: Since this is apparent to you (and to me!) it must also be apparent to Arthur T. Therefore, did he get some binding guarantee that his practices would NOT change–or did he simply “sell out” to retain his role. Can you guys resolve these two “uncertainties”?
Peter Olney responds:
I want to respond to the two “uncertainties” that John Bowman raises. First I think that we are saying that the power of the MB story is that it was a strategic strike that paralyzed production and engaged a very successful consumer boycott. It was on that basis that the media was engaged and very powerfully so. The “leverage” in this case was the complete paralysis of the business. A union contract would guarantee in writing the wages and conditions of the workers so that they are not at the whim and caprice of a new owner. But as many have pointed out including JJ La Fitch below, this was a struggle waged by workers and their supervisors without a union and in some ways benefited from not having some of the legal shackles of present day contract unionism.
Second, we can only speculate on what deals Arthur T may have made to get the capital necessary to complete the deal. We shall see how things play out.
Peter and Rand nailed the key lessons from the Market Basket struggle. I hope they continue to report on what and how the mass collective action undertaken by a mix of key worker actors, backed by their community, transforms the workplace relations post struggle.
It’s mass collective action, with a mix of key actors, that can transform the current state of outrages in this country. Contrast this struggle, as the authors did, with what is fed as ‘innovation’ which reduces workers to ‘authentic messengers’ paired up with expensive communicators and social media.
This case has more lessons coming. Hope you two keep doing close-observation and reporting.
Thanks, Jane