The Myth of the “Good Boss”
Examining how the myth of the “good boss” undermines the labor struggle and plays into management’s hands
I was working with my father when I heard the first whispers of a walkout. In a power play, the Board of Directors of the New England supermarket chain Market Basket fired the President/CEO Arthur T. Demoulas on June 23, 2014. A day after the firing, managers and employees of the flagship Market Basket store in Chelsea, MA, resigned and rallied outside in protest. What inspired such loyalty to a millionaire whose class interests are diametrically opposed to his rank-and-file, non-unionized workers?
The “summer of Market Basket” as Boston.com called it, came after the employees of Market Basket’s Tewksbury, MA, headquarters issued an ultimatum. What was their demand? Perhaps the right of the workers to join the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW), the union representing workers at Stop & Shop, Kroger’s, and others? Raises? More benefits?
None of the above.
In the ultimatum, Market Basket headquarters staff unequivocally demanded the immediate re-instatement of Arthur T. (affectionately nicknamed Artie T., or ATD) and said they “will not work for anyone but ATD.” To those unfamiliar with Market Basket’s company politics, such a demand might have seemed very odd. Why does it matter which suit stands to gain from their labor?
As it turns out, Arthur T. had been a “good” boss. When it comes to wages, benefits, the profit-sharing scheme, and other bottom-line concerns, most Market Basket employees had come to view Arthur T. as having at heart the best interests of workers. In contrast, Arthur T.’s rivals on the board (of which cousin Arthur S. had controlling interest) were viewed as double-crossers who would sooner sell out the workers (or sell the company altogether) before ever negotiating in good faith with their employees. And the workers would not take ‘no’ for an answer.
When the board did not act, their employees did. On July 18, roughly 3,000 Market Basket workers and customers rallied outside headquarters with ‘Save Market Basket’ signs and chants of “Bring him back!” and “Shut it down!” Adding fuel to the fire, eight employees who organized the rally were fired, which prompted more protests and walkouts at all store locations. Soon after, the ousted CEO spoke publicly for the first time since his firing to call for the eight fired workers to be re-instated. Workers and many politicians began to call for a boycott.
Around this point in time, my father (who is a vendor for the Market Basket in Bourne, MA) stopped service — out of principle and out of necessity, since customers had begun boycotting the store in droves. This was my first personal experience of a walk-out. The solidarity electrified me. I faithfully watched the news about the protest, which was not dejected but jovial. Reports from the protests compared them to “tailgating parties” and “campaign rallies” — which is endearing until you recognize that these protests were to restore a CEO. The worker walkouts and the customer boycott were costing Market Basket millions of dollars in revenue — due to lost sales and worker sabotage (e.g., refused service and produce left to spoil). Why would workers put their livelihoods on the line for one very wealthy and powerful man?
One answer is that Arthur T. was a proxy for their job security and their faith in the system. The workers entrusted their welfare with Arthur T. like they would a father figure. Not only did he provide for them financially, he gave them emotional support. In a neoliberal economy that has gutted union power while executive pay dwarfs average workers’ wages, a benevolent boss is the last hope of non-unionized workers like those at Market Basket. In a report for Esquire, Chris Faraone went so far as to call the protests “the last stand of the middle class.” Instead of rallying behind their boss, imagine if Market Basket workers had organized to unionize.
The utility of the “good” boss myth is that it delegitimizes and discourages unionism and working-class consciousness. It worked for Henry Ford and Samuel Gompers in the Gilded Age, and it is still working for Elon Musk and Bill Gates during the Information Age. When the acting chief executives stated that the company would hold a job fair and cut future hours of part-timers, their antipathy gave the workers more reason to distrust them — which greatly benefited Arthur T.’s position. Studies have shown that “good” bosses who “project warmth” and a “good attitude” foster “trust,” loyalty, and commitment in workers. Arthur T. disarmed his employees with kindness and financial incentives rather than intimidating them with threats and coercion.
As the protests progressed, Market Basket workers grew more zealous in their backing of the martyred Arthur T., which was only made more dire when the company gave workers a final warning to resume work (and be granted full amnesty), or be terminated. The workers were up against a wall and willing to risk their jobs for Arthur T. The most iron-fisted autocrat could only dream of the reverence that Market Basket workers have for their one and only CEO. And Arthur T. was poised to take full control of the company for the rest of his life — having made repeated offers to buy out his rivals’ shares in the company.
Eventually, the pressure from workers and customers became too great for the board to hold out any longer. On August 27, 2014, the opposing sides reached an agreement. The protests culminated in Arthur T. agreeing to buy the remaining shares of the company for $1.5 billion. The credulity of Arthur T.’s employees is literally paying dividends. Arthur T.’s business model has contributed to $5.2 billion in sales as of 2019 — making it the 83rd largest private American company according to Forbes.
The Market Basket walkout/boycott is a story of collective harm reduction. Market Basket workers recognized that their well-being and livelihoods depended on Arthur T. being re-instated as President/CEO. That they would be signing over the company to one man was not nearly as important as whether he was a “good” man. Were the workers to have demanded union representation, the result could have been more workplace democracy (especially with the solidarity among the workers) and the power of collective bargaining (as will be needed to negotiate a fair and binding contract when Arthur T. ceases to be CEO).
As Joe Allen wrote in Jacobin of the walkout and boycott: “What is the union without militant action, and what is militant action without the union to sharpen and direct it?” The militancy of the Market Basket protest shows that workers will organize and fight back if/when their workplace conditions and livelihoods are threatened. The myth of the “good” boss prevented them from unionizing, but the protest makes one thing clear. A boss can come and go on a dime, but the workers united can (and should) bring a company to its knees when the situation warrants it.
