By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Market Basket’s customers deserve credit, too

Also published at WGBHNews.org.

One quick observation about the resolution of the Market Basket standoff: This was a very rare case of a consumer boycott actually working. The reason it worked was because people truly love Market Basket and wanted to support the employees.

The workers deserve a huge amount of credit for standing up and risking their livelihoods. But if this had been just another supermarket, management would have fired them all and the public wouldn’t have cared — at least not enough to force action. In the case of Market Basket, management didn’t dare fire the workers because the customers wouldn’t have stood for it.

Congratulations to the employees — and, yes, to Arthur T. Demoulas — for a remarkable victory. Market Basket has become a symbol of how people working in the service economy can make a decent living while still offering a better product than the competition.

Previous

The James Foley video and bearing witness to evil

Next

Billionaires’ bash: Big moves by Henry’s Globe, Bezos’ Post

6 Comments

  1. Mike Rice

    Two thoughts. Whoever came up with “money is the root of all evil” nailed it and too bad the upshot of this Market Basket saga is the exception rather than the rule. Bye now.

  2. Andy Koppel

    While I agree with your sentiments, you have mangled an oft mangled quote. It is from the New Testament and the quote is: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” This is not unlike an often misquoted line from Emerson. People typically quote him as saying that “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” What he actually referred to was a ” foolish consistency . . .”

    • Dan Kennedy

      I always believed that lack of money was the root of all evil.

      • Mike Benedict

        Wasn’t Jesus a pauper?

      • Mike Rice

        … especially at the end of the month. If you think no one cares about you try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

  3. Keith Saunders

    The ATD supporters offered a promise–the present board and CEO’s plan to raise prices and lower pay and job security. Since it was the absolute truth, the ASD-led side was unable to do anything other than blame their employees for the inconvenience that the customers (who, in the last-gasps of negotiations were promised if the sale did not go through, they would be punished with the loss of 61 stores) ended up choosing to support. They could offer no acceptable alternative narrative. They utterly failed to lead.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén