Market Basket issued letters to hundreds of protesting employees yesterday giving them until Friday to return to work or lose their jobs — a move that legally will be difficult to enforce, a labor expert told the Herald.
"An employer in this situation has to be very careful because no matter how this has been labeled, the rank and file employees are on strike, and strikers have certain rights, including the right not to be terminated for engaging in a strike," said Keith H. McCown, a top labor lawyer at Morgan, Brown & Joy, LLP. "Even though there's no union in the picture, these employees are withholding their services collectively and that is a strike."
Strikers can technically be replaced, but even then retain certain protections. McCown told the Herald that, under the law, supervisors do not have a similarly protected right to strike.
Workers launched the protests and walkouts July 18 calling for the reinstatement of Arthur T. Demoulas, who was fired as CEO in June by the company's board, which is controlled by rival cousin Arthur S. Demoulas.
Market Basket said yesterday it had issued the letters to about 200 "associates" — both at the supervisor level and in administrative support — working at headquarters and distribution centers who have stopped showing up.
The protesting workers estimated as many as 700 letters went out.
"Should you choose to ignore either of these directives, the company will consider you to have abandoned your job, thereby ending your employment with the company," Market Basket wrote in the letter, according to the web site WeAreMarketBasket.com.
Mike Meuse, a Market Basket operations supervisor and safety manager, told the Herald he was "shocked" when he received the letter yesterday, but vowed not to cave.
"If they release me on Friday, I guess they release me on Friday," said Meuse. "They can call it job abandonment, but I look at it as them terminating me."
Now that Market Basket has given workers an ultimatum, it has to follow through to preserve its credibility in the ongoing mess, said supermarket analyst David Livingston of DJL Research in Milwaukee.
"They'll have to let people go because if they don't, no one's going to believe anything they say," said Livingston. "I think these employees are prepared for that. I think they've got a cult-like following of Arthur T., and they're prepared to lose their jobs for this man."
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