When Will Market Basket Employees Return To Work?

Peter Howe, Shirley Leung, George Donnelly discussed the impact on workers, customers and the public relations war

Members of NECN’s Boston Business Editors’ Roundtable discussed the latest in the Market Basket saga.

The roundtable began with insights on everything from the impact on workers and customers to the company's ongoing public relations war.

NECN business editor Peter Howe, Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe, and George Donnelly of the Boston Business Journal weighed in.

Protesting part-time employees have been paid for their scheduled work hours since the beginning of their protests over three weeks ago. Leung began by saying she thinks the protests will weaken in the coming week as those employees lose their jobs.

“The one thing that I wonder about is the board, you know, the independent board of directors. What are they doing? Why can’t they control the family? I mean, it’s their fiduciary responsibility to kind of get things under control, and we’re starting week four of a crisis and the fact that they can’t being everyone together just to get the company operating again, I feel like there’s a big failure on their part,” Leung said.

The roundtable continued by discussing the passion the employees have.

“We are seeing a brand new chapter in labor history. Never before has a company of this size been basically brought to its knees across the board by employees, non-union employees,” Donnelly explained.

Additionally, the members of the roundtable predicted how the dispute may end.

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