CHELSEA, Mass. —More Market Basket workers are getting ready to put their jobs on the line as they prepare for another rally to support their ousted CEO.
At Market Basket in Chelsea, there were enough empty shelves this weekend to make some shoppers wonder if a storm was approaching.
“There’s nothing in the store,” said Haroon Sidiqi. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Deliveries to Market Basket stores across the region stopped Friday as employees fight to have their former CEO reinstated. Arthur T. Demoulas was fired in June, spurring warehouse workers to walk off the job in protest.
Much of the produce, meat and fish were wiped out on Sunday at the Chelsea location. Amine Djellouli had stopped in to buy vegetables.
“It is unbelievable, we don’t see any food,” she said. “I understand the strike, people need decent pay and money. On the other hand, we are struggling to find food here for our families.”
Seventeen Massachusetts lawmakers called for a boycott of the regional supermarket giant.
“We, the undersigned, stand today with the thousands of Market Basket employees who have walked out of their jobs in protest of the firing of their beloved CEO Arthur T. Demoulas,” the boycott document read, according to The Boston Globe.
Attorney General Martha Coakley praised protesting employees Sunday, saying "workers deserve to be treated with respect and their voices deserve to be heard."
On Sunday afternoon, workers said a warehouse supervisor was fired over the protests, according to wearemarketbasket.com.
Shoppers told NewsCenter 5 on Facebook that they were also seeing empty shelves in West Bridgewater, Reading, Raynham and Hudson and Nashua, New Hampshire. Laura Spacer also had no luck getting what she needed on her grocery list in Chelsea.
"There's nothing here," she said. "I guess I'll have to go shop at Stop & Shop."
Many people said they weren’t familiar with the feud between employees and their corporate owners, but were disappointed that it was affecting their grocery-buying.
“There was no produce, the shelves were empty,” one customer said. “It’s too bad, it’s a great store.”
This could be a cool story...anyone have any good links to the court hearing?
