Market Basket workers said they won't take their cues from Gov. Deval Patrick, after the governor said yesterday protesting employees need to return to work to "stabilize" the crippled Tewksbury company.
"We don't take direction from the governor," said Tom Trainor, one of the fired senior Market Basket workers leading employee protests and job walk-offs that, along with a customer boycott, have brought the chain of 71 stores to a virtual standstill as they seek the reinstatement of former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas. Demoulas was fired in June by a rival board faction led by his cousin Arthur S. Demoulas and since has offered to buy the company.
"We take direction from Arthur T., and if somehow he gets word to us that he wants us to go back to work and stabilize the company, that's what we'll do," Trainor said. "The governor should be using his power … to get the two sides to finalize the deal rather than telling employees to go back to work when they don't know what they're walking into or what will happen next week."
Patrick told reporters yesterday: "It's appropriate for the workers to know … that they can go back to work and indeed that we need them to go back to work to stabilize the company. I hope that they can see a way to do that while the buyer and seller work out the final terms of a transaction."
Patrick's call for warehouse and headquarters employees to return to work echoes repeated calls from the company's three independent board directors and the two new co-CEOs. The CEOs have set "final" deadlines of Aug. 15 and 18 for protesting workers to return to work without penalty.
A post yesterday on the protesters' website, wearemarket basket.com, said what Patrick "doesn't seem to understand is that the 2 million customers are boycotting our stores because they want Arthur T. Demoulas back as the CEO with full authority. Associates going back without (Arthur T. Demoulas) will not stabilize the company."
Market Basket's three independent directors yesterday applauded Patrick's call in a statement: "We, as independent board members, cannot force any shareholders to buy or to sell, nor can we control the timing of their decisions. All we seek is to get our associates back to work earning a steady income so our customers can go back to shopping. It's well past the time when anyone can frame the crisis as 'us vs. them,' or a 'family feud.' There are too many families being impacted."
A spokeswoman for Arthur T. Demoulas declined comment.
Patrick may be getting involved because Market Basket is "pretty close to having the wheels off the bus completely, said Kevin Griffin, publisher of The Griffin Report of Food Marketing. "All of a sudden in the blink of an eye you have one of the healthiest companies in the commonwealth now in real danger. I think the governor is getting involved to put more pressure on both sides to try to get the deal finalized."
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