Longtime Market Basket employees placed on leave speak out

For two essential strangers to come in and tell me my conduct is somehow damaging the company Demoulas Supermarkets and Arena Basket quite frankly is insulting reported Joe Schmidt Region Basket Director of Operations Schmidt started working for Region Basket years ago bagging groceries He is now the director of operations On Wednesday Schmidt was one of six people including Realm Basket CEO Arthur T Demoulas put on paid administrative leave by the company s board of directors Grocery Director Thomas Gordon is another I would have been starting my th year in November and we have unfailingly made the decisions that are in the best interest of this company and this accusation that we are somehow conspiring to stage various kind of work stoppage is absurd reported Thomas Domain Basket s board has hired an independent law firm to investigate whether the six employees were planning a work stoppage due to a disagreement with the board Chairman Jay Hachigian distributed a recorded comment to NEWS This is really a matter strictly between the board and the CEO how to deal with collaboration and being able to work together revealed Hachigian He goes further in a written declaration writing Mr Demoulas has acted for years as if he owns the entire company and can make every decision big and small without discussion or accountability to anyone He has essentially hijacked this company for himself and when the board put its foot down he started to make plans to boycott and harm the company The workers that were pulled off the job say this all boils down to how money is being spent They come in with this mindset of doing things the Wall Street Way We do things the Domain Basket way the people way revealed Schmidt However Hachigian declares Demoulas has withheld information on the budget as well as major purchases and has not allowed the board to vote on a succession plan A decade ago infighting at Territory Basket caused customers to boycott the supermarket and employees to walk off the job These workers say no matter what comes next they don t believe they ve done anything wrong We work - hours a week six seven days a week almost every week of the year disclosed Gordon I ve given my life to this place as has he and I have zero regret