Demoulas Market Basket Controversy

Essentially, the Demoulas Market Basket directors fired allegedly generous-to-workers Arthur T,  replacing him with allegedly selfish greedy mean-to-workers CEO duo of  Gooch & Thornton. This led to strikes by the Market Basket work-force, who demanded reinstatement of the allegedly generous Arthur T.  Arthur T has offered to buy Market Basket from those who fired him. So far Market Basket has been acting/talking tough with their rebellious employees, and refusing to sell to Arthur T. This story has for some reason fascinated the media.

The logical solution I see here: The outraged Market Basket workers marshal their own financial resources to help Arthur T to increase the amount he can pay to buy the company, whilst in the process acquiring a certain percentage ownership of the company, which they would then share with Arthur T.

Another adult-style (as opposed to childish) possible move: The workers put together money, which combined with Arthur T's big money, allow Arthur T and the workers to take control of not 100% of Demoulas Market Basket, but, rather, more than 50% of it, whilst at the same time those selling stock to Arthur T & the workers receive more per share compared to what they are now being offered.

A third possible common-sense solution: Allegedly the 'greedy' shareholders who own half of Demoulas are getting 'cheap' with workers because they want to increase dividends for themselves. The result should be an increase in dividends for the 'nice-guy' Arthur T., who owns the other half of Demoulas, the company which fired him Arthur T. So then the thing to do is for Arthur T., to in some way continue his nice-guy relationship with the Demoulas employees, by sharing his dividends with them: (tongue-in-cheek humor...for example, free soda-pop on Mondays, free cup-cakes on Tuesdays, free ice-cream on Wednesdays, etc).

Following is my condensation of 'DeMoulas Market Basket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia':

(note: 'good' and 'bad' are used for identification purposes and do not imply moral judgements made upon those involved)

DeMoulas...name Market Basket...chain...71 supermarkets ... 2014 ... ownership...leadership disputes ... protests ... international ... attention.

...1916 (DEMOULAS YR 0), Greek ... Athanasios ... Demoulas ...opened...store in Lowell, Ma...specializing in...lamb...1954 (DEMOULAS YR 38)...sold... store to two...children...("Mike") (BAD SON 2) & George (GOOD SON 1). Within 15 (1969, DEMOULAS YR 53) years...transformed...into ...supermarket chain...15 stores.

George (GOOD SON 1)...died... in 1971 (DEMOULAS YR 55)...making Mike (BAD SON 2)...sole head of the...chain...each brother had promised to provide for the other's family in the event of...death...

Lawsuit...1990 (DEMOULAS YR 74)... heirs of George...(GOOD SON 1) claimed...Mike (BAD SON 2) had defrauded them...of 92%...of company stock by moving assets into shell companies, such as...'Seabrook Sales Inc.'...claiming...these were separate companies from DeMoulas....

... 1994 (DEMOULAS YR 78), Judge...Lopez ruled...Mike (BAD SON 2)...had defrauded George's (GOOD SON 1) family out of... $500 million; Judge's order transferred  51% of Demoulas' stock to George's (GOOD SON 1) family.

Mike (BAD SON 2) died in 2003 (DEMOULAS YR 87)...age 82...2006 (DEMOULAS YR 90)...(GOOD SON 1) George's  son, Arthur S (SON OF GOOD SON 1)...owned...$1.6 billion...

2008...directors elected Mike's (BAD SON 2) son Arthur T (SON OF BAD SON 2) president...corporation.

...2014 (DEMOULAS YR 98), Arthur T (SON OF BAD SON 2)... fired by...directors. Two consultants have since...run the company.

CEO...position...filled by...Gooch...Radio Shack exec ... Thornton ... of supermarket ... Albertsons...

...2014, six top level corporate workers resigned...after the...firing of President Arthur T (SON OF BAD SON 2)...300 protestors ... outside ... flagship store in Chelsea.  Protesters characterized ... new executives ... "goal ... raising prices, cutting benefits, loading up with debt...selling off real estate--in order to pay ... dividends to ... controlling shareholders ... warehouse ... office workers ...  strike ... shelves bare at...Market Basket locations ... 2014, protests ... by employees and customers ... at ... demanding Arthur T's (SON OF BAD SON 2) reinstatement...feud has slowed construction of...Waltham, MA store...

Arthur T (SON OF BAD SON 2) offered to buy the...company from his cousins (CHILDREN OF GOOD SON 1) ... 2014 ... Arthur T (SON OF BAD SON 2) was ... only ... bidder for ... 50.5% ... of ... company held by the family of Arthur S (SON OF GOOD SON 1)...

Consumer Reports ... Market Basket...No. 7 supermarket ... 2012 survey...three stores in the chain's history have...closed...Market Basket's  flagship store is in Chelsea, MA...

Details of My Condensation
411 Words (26% of original)
2682 Characters
Sentences 47
Paragraphs 14
Avg. Sentence (words) 9
Avg. Sentence (chars) 58
Keyword Density
31 (11%) son
12 (4%) demoulas
12 (4%) bad
9 (3%) yr
9 (3%) good
8 (3%) arthur
5 (2%) 2014
5 (2%) store
5 (2%) mike
4 (1%) market

Details of original Wiki Article
1584 Words
9741 Characters
Sentences 57
Paragraphs 48
Avg. Sentence (words) 28
Avg. Sentence (chars) 171
Keyword Density
28 (3%)market
24 (3%)stores
22 (2%)demoulas
22 (2%)basket
17 (2%)store
15 (2%)massachusetts
14 (2%)arthur
11 (1%)2014
11 (1%)company
9 (1%)2013