If ever I run a large business I hope I'm good enough to warrant that sort of loyalty and respect from my employees. That's something to aspire to.

This has been flooding the news in the Boston/Mass area for a while. The fact that the employees (both ground level and managers) had this level of organization and persistence without having a union speaks volumes about both the people that work there and how much Arthur T. is respected.

Can you provide more commentary on the history of all this and why he's so respected? I think that would be helpful. The news is pretty slim on that subject.

In addition to what others have noted:

he's seen as someone who develops people internally, with many of his management team having started out as baggers years ago

the stores have been noted for years as having good prices (and, at least where I am, exceptionally fresh produce, because of the high turnover because of the good prices).

*The employees made the case to the public that the new management team intended to load the company up with debt, to the benefit of shareholders and to the detriment of employees and customers. Given people's experience of how private equity firms have ruined many things this seemed plausible, especially given that non-unionized employees were willing to put their jobs on the line because of it.

From what I heard previously he was responsible for pretty decent working conditions and benefits (think the level of pay and benefits that Costco is known to provider their employees). The brother of the owner was seeking to reverse many of these kinds of things in order to look at the bottom-line for the stores.

It goes beyond that, too. He has a track record of making decisions that benefit employees and shoppers while having little or no direct benefit to the company. In some cases he chose to absorb costs he could have easily passed on to one group or the other. He regularly attends weddings, funerals, ad other such events for his employees and their families.

More information: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/25862-market-basket-strike...

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/28/news/companies/market-basket...

You should have submitted the first one of these links. Maybe dang can change it for you.

It doesn't have the newest news - the strike seems to have worked, and Arthur T. Demoulas is getting control of the company.

True, but autoplay video only links are problematic for those of us that are allegedly working. ;)

Sorry, I figured the video was the important thing here. It's already being discussed as a resource for b-school students.

Arthur T. Demoulas is reinstated as CEO of Market Basket, and 25K employees celebrate his return.

Fixed that for ya!

How is this relevant to Hacker News?

I think since HN has lot of talk is about startups and building a buisines its relevant. I live in this state and its been astonishing how these employees basically went on strike to support the CEO.

How many coders would do that for their CEO?

At its core its a story of 2 cousins control of a company and showing that doing the right thing by employees pays off in the long run. Arthur T who the company tried to get rid of by all accounts did right the employees, when he got let go employees feared new management would end up treating them badly and rebelled.

Tons of free publicity for the chain, which is a smaller one in the Northeast.

It's about leadership on a site dedicated to business. Just because it's not "grocery shopping, but on a computer" doesn't make it irrelevant to HN.

I think it also illustrates that going into business with your family can ruin not only your business but your family relationships as well. Obviously Market Basket is an outlier case that progressed over decades but some of board meeting excerpts are pretty crazy:

http://www.boston.com/business/news/2014/08/14/the-market-ba...

There are tons of ways this is relevant to Hacker news, the ability for labour, management ,customers and vendors to stick it out for a fair society is un-heard off.

Lots of companies (Tech) and non tech speak about ethos and values they espose off but rarely follow up on. I respect those who walk the talk and not just talk the talk. Clearly Arthur T walked his talk and his employee stood up for him. If I ever get to a leadership, I only wish I can do some of the stuff he has done for his employees and customers.

The Market Basket story will go into the B-school textbooks, or should. An amazing lesson in the triumph of good leadership over bad. Everyone who wants to start a business could learn from this guy.