Market Basket prez fends off ouster bid

Thousands of Market Basket employees line the street to the hotel where the Board of Directors meeting was held. (Photo courtesy T.J. Lavoie)

ROCHESTER – There’ll be a smile in every aisle at Rochester Market Basket today.

That’s because current company president and CEO Arthur T. Demoulas kept his job after an ouster attempt yesterday at a contentious Board of Director’s meeting that spawned a demonstration by thousands of employees in support of their current boss.

Tom Dumais, an assistant manager at Rochester Market Basket, was among the crowd who descended on the Wyndham Boston Andover hotel in Andover, Mass. where the meeting was held. 

After getting there at 5 a.m. he came home to Rochester in the afternoon, but heard the good news by phone later around 9:45 p.m. He said to see in person the incredible amount of support for Demoulas was “very touching. I was proud to be a part of it,” he said.

The retention of Demoulas comes to the relief of local Market Basket employees and customers who feared a change in leadership would stoke higher prices at the popular supermarket.

The Eagle Tribune of Lawrence quoted Demoulas as saying last night, “I am pleased with today's result. I hope to work constructively with the board going forward." 

Many Rochester Market Basket employees in recent days had privately expressed concerns about changes that might be made if leadership changed, from higher prices to the cutting of employee benefits. Their worries spilled into the public on Thursday as thousands of Market Basket employees lined the roadway into the Wyndham hotel in support of Demoulas.

Recent changes in the company's seven-member Board of Directors had swayed the balance of power in favor of Arthur S. Demoulas, the cousin of current CEO Arthur T. Demoulas. 

As Arthur T. Demoulas arrived at the board meeting on Thursday one spectator, a Market Basket employee, is said to have remarked it was like a “papal procession,” with the current boss shaking hands with loyal employees as his car slowly motored through the crowd to the hotel parking lot.

The New Hampshire and Massachusetts supermarket giant will open its first store in Maine in Biddeford later this month.

The grocery chain began in Lowell, Mass., and has its headquarters in Tewksbury, Mass. 

Dumais said the mood among employees today was nothing less than ecstatic.

“Everyone’s smiling,” he said moments before the store opened at 7 a.m.