Demoulas Placed on Leave by Market Basket Board

Popular grocery store chain, Market Basket, whose 90 stores across the region employ 30,000 workers, is seeing tension at the top once more after the company's Board of Directors placed CEO Arthur T. Demoulas on leave yesterday.

In a press release, the Market Basket board said Demoulas was placed on leave due to "credible allegations" that he had plans to initiate a work stoppage. The move, said the board, was likely in retaliation to their demands that Demoulas "work with the Board regarding the most basic corporate oversight and ... provide the Board access to key employees." Tension over succession planning was also mentioned.

A work stoppage, said the press release, would be harmful to the chain's operations as well as its customers and vendors, and the board requires input into the future leadership of the company.

Demoulas, affectionately known as "Artie T.", has a different story. Through spokesperson Justine Griffin, he called the board's move "a farcical cover for a hostile takeover," asserting that the company's operations are at their best ever. A year ago, the company paid off the debt incurred in 2014 when Artie T. and his sisters purchased the business from their cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas.

Demoulas wasn't the only executive impacted, he said through Griffin. His daughter, son, "and several other Market Basket executives were also placed on leave."

The Demoulas family has been fighting publicly for decades for control of the business, which was founded by their family over 100 years ago. Tensions came to a head in 2014 when another attempt to oust Artie T. resulted in a sweeping boycott that ultimately ended in the restoration of his seat as CEO.

Whether this marks another turning point in Market Basket's storied saga or a return to battles among the family's faction remains to be seen.