‘Onerous’ terms prolong standoff, Arthur T. says
Related: Shopping at a Different Market Basket
I'm against newspapers that support dictatorships.
"Fleeing suspect attempts to jump from Tobin Bridge; After falling into net, was rescued and then arrested" by Nicholas Jacques | Globe Correspondent August 09, 2014
An Everett man wanted by Malden police on suspicion of attempted murder tried to jump from the Tobin Bridge Saturday morning while fleeing Chelsea police, but became stuck in construction safety netting, authorities said.
Malden police tracked Mostafa Laassal’s cellphone and alerted Chelsea officers that he was in the area of Everett Avenue, Chelsea Captain Keith Houghton said.
Officers saw Laassal, 49, parked in the Market Basket parking lot of Everett Avenue at about 9:30 a.m. When they approached him, he fled in his vehicle.
Odd place to park.
Police pursued Laassal at a low speed onto the upper deck of the bridge, Houghton said. As his car ascended the bridge, he swerved multiple times and came to a stop at least twice.
Laassal left the vehicle with a knife, jumped over the bridge’s railing, and became stuck in construction netting on the lower deck, police said.
Houghton said the suspect did not approach officers with the knife.
An officer on the upper deck secured the suspect in the netting while officers on the lower deck were able to pull him out, Houghton said.
Authorities took him to Massachusetts General Hospital with serious leg injuries, police said.
Houghton described the alleged attempted murder as a domestic case involving a knife, but had no further information.
Chelsea police charged Laassal with motor vehicle infractions.
Houghton said he expects Malden police to charge him with attempted murder and take him into custody when he is discharged from the hospital.
State Police briefly shut the bridge to traffic during the rescue, but all lanes were reopened and traffic was flowing smoothly shortly afterward, Trooper Dustin Fitch said.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Market Basket a rare case in labor world; Singular focus unites nonunion workers" by Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff August 12, 2014
Market Basket workers don’t have a union. But they achieved in three weeks what few unions have accomplished in recent years: They stood up to their multibillion-dollar employer, won local and national sympathy for their struggle, and stayed united.
I didn't detect a lot of that in the Bo$ton Globe, but I didn't inspect the produce that well.
In one of the highest-profile worker movements in years — and in one of the most union-friendly states in the country — organized labor is on the sidelines.
That sentence speaks volumes about the "labor" movement.
The job actions at Market Basket demonstrate the power and voice that employees can have when they unite for a cause, but the high-profile drama is a highly unusual case in labor relations, specialists said. It may be difficult, they add, to draw many conclusions for other workers across the country who are struggling for better wages, working conditions, and benefits.
Occupy's power and voice was smashed in the face and is gone now.
“It’s a very, very special case,” said Ron Seeber, a Cornell University professor of industrial and labor relations. “It’s hard to imagine this happening in many other settings.”
Analysts also note Market Basket employees have not achieved their central demand: the restoration of their ousted boss, Arthur T. Demoulas, as president of the company.
As the walkout stretches into its fourth week, the financial risks and pressures on workers and the broader movement only intensify.
The $olidarity-busting Globe taking a hatchet to them.
The decision last week to cut back hours for part-time employees — and consequently, their paychecks — could open fissures between part-timers and their more senior full-time co-workers.
That is why management did it. Standard strategy to break a united workforce.
Market Basket workers have mostly emptied the stores of groceries and customers, held massive rallies in support of the former president, and garnered national attention with stories in The New York Times, on CBS News, and even in Esquire magazine, which called the protest movement the “last stand for the middle class.”
Oh my goodne$$! The Globe mentioned it!
Many of the workers have said they fear that without Arthur T. at helm, their decent wages and good benefits will disappear.
This job action is not about management demands to roll back wages, eliminate traditional pensions in favor of 401(k) plans, or cut health benefits — issues that can divide employees with different ages and pay tiers.
There is a single focus: restoring Arthur T. as head of the company. He was dismissed in late June by the company’s board, which is controlled by his archrival and cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas.
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The fight also has involved nearly the entire 25,000-person workforce, from cashiers to store managers.
Usually, when front-line workers walk out in protest, mid-level managers take over, doing the work and buffering the company’s bottom line from potential financial losses.
But in the Market Basket fight, the company’s managers — from high-level supervisors to directors and department heads at individual stores — have been a key force in the protest movement. They have helped organize the rallies and demonstrations, encouraged customer boycotts, and supported lower-level workers.
That is SUCH a KEY because WE ALL NEED TO BE IN IT TOGETHER!
No wonder my corporate pre$$ has been giving me $kewed coverage.
More skjews:
Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center of the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California Santa Barbara, pointed out that national labor law bars managers from participating in unions.
“Here you have an example of the advantages of not being within the law,” Lichtenstein said.
???? The strikers are outlaws?
“This is clarifying. If you’re really going to have a revival of the labor movement in America, all these phony distinctions about who is a manager and who is a worker . . . have to be cast aside.”
I agree with that.
A more conventional labor protest took place at a Market Basket competitor, Shaw’s, in 2010, when unionized warehouse workers struck for four months over pay and health benefits. The result was much less damaging to Shaw’s.
I know I could go find some Shaw's links, but according to past Globe reports those stores stinky and now owned by Cerberus.
That chain’s managers hired replacement workers and were able to keep the stores open for customers.
As the cost to families and finances mounted, some striking Shaw’s employees crossed the picket lines. Ultimately, the union settled for a deal that was comparable to the one it had rejected earlier.
As powerless as Hamas.
A 2012 strike at Caterpillar Inc. had similar results. Union machinists at an Illinois plant walked off the job after the company demanded a wage freeze and benefit cuts, despite the heavy equipment maker’s strong profits. Less than four months later, they returned to work and agreed to most of the company’s demands.
“Over the few past decades, when we’ve seen workers resist . . . the workers have lost,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociology professor at the University of Washington and the author of “What Unions No Longer Do.”
Nationally, the number of strikes has plummeted, from 317 in 1973 to just 15 last year, according to the US Department of Labor.
Meaning there is no labor movement in this country and it is under corporate thumb.
Those strikes, btw, we ALL STATE GOVERNMENT STRIKES! Private unions are dead or powerle$$.
If the Market Basket action succeeds, it may offer worker movements a sliver of hope after a series of defeats, Rosenfeld said.
“The situation seems to be unprecedented,” he said. “It’s still very early,” he said, noting that union actions can go on for months.
But now a downside to the revolt has emerged: Thousands of Market Basket workers are not going to be paid this week, because their hours have been cut to zero since there is so little business at the stores.
The brunt has been felt by the company’s part-time employees, who make up a majority of its workforce. Meanwhile, store managers and their assistants are still at work and are being paid.
The longer a standoff lasts, the harder it can be on workers who are going without a paycheck, said Paul Feeney, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 2222, in Dorchester.
In 2011, members of the electrical workers union went on strike against Verizon Communications Inc. But they went back to work after two weeks and returned to the negotiating table, eventually preserving some pay and benefits when a new contract was finalized more than a year later.
When strikes stretch on, unions may help with funds to aid workers with family and living expenses, but the amounts are usually a fraction of the regular paychecks.
Market Basket organizers have set up a fund-raising site that asks workers who are being paid to help support warehouse workers and truck drivers who walked off the job and prevented deliveries of fresh food to the stores, leaving shelves mostly empty.
The fund has raised more than $91,000.
I must have mi$$ed the articles promoting that in my Globe. Sorry.
Audra Makuch, assistant to the regional director for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said her organization has received phone calls from part-time Market Basket workers who are increasingly concerned they will lose out in this family feud.
“They’ve done amazing work bringing the company to their knees,” Makuch said, “but as people lose their hours, people are getting scared.”
Feeney, from the electrical workers union, said the Market Basket saga puts companies on notice that employees still have some leverage.
Verizon workers, he added, will soon start renegotiating their contract. “Hopefully,” he said, “we’ll use that momentum.”
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Also see:
How to save Market Basket: Go and shop there
There is nothing there.
Inexpensive alternatives to Market Basket exist
Market Basket part-timers encouraged to file for unemployment
Just trying to help you out.
UPDATE: Some Market Basket workers told to report to work or be fired
