Arthur T. ran Market Basket with a straightforward and progressive management philosophy: treat its 25,000 employees (and customers) with respect and attention; promote from within; provide great pay and retirement benefits and continually invest in your staff. As a result, he developed an extraordinarily devoted workforce of people who grew up at the company and remained for decades and took great pride in making the stores so successful.
Over time, though, Arthur T.’s pension programs and above-market salaries were criticized by the board, who felt such generosity depressed shareholder dividends. On June 23, the board ultimately voted to remove Arthur T. as president.
That’s when the chain’s employees — many of them boomers — rose up in revolt. Some went on strike; others played key roles in protests including rallies attended by thousands.
Customers stopped shopping at Market Basket and suppliers could no longer deliver new products. In short, the company came to a near halt, with business down by 90 percent and losses of an estimated 10 million dollars a day.
Market Basket’s employees — and the thousands of customers who joined their movement — didn’t want to bring down the chain. They just wanted Arthur T. back in charge. This was an unprecedented twist to the history of job actions in America, typically initiated by employees seeking more money and better working conditions.
Market Basket’s activist boomers, I believe, helped reinvigorate a needed debate about corporate stewardship and whether management’s primary financial path should be a focus on short-term dividends to shareholders or on additional investments in growth, employee pay and benefits to develop a stable and loyal workforce.
They also brought back the concept of corporate responsibility as a critical part of the conversation about business success. For decades, corporate responsibility has been discredited by a narrow focus on shareholder value as the marker of a company’s worth.
