Market Basket is eliminating work hours altogether for thousands of part-time employees because of the steep drop-off in business that has followed the stand-off between rival factions of the Demoulas family, which owns the supermarket chain.
Managers at multiple Market Basket stores said most of their part-time employees will not have any hours to work next week; in New Hampshire alone, Gov. Maggie Hassan estimated that Market Basket has some 8,000 part-time employees, and that those who end up not working could be eligible to collect unemployment benefits.
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“My part-time force has been eliminated entirely,” said store manager Matthew Matson.
RELATED: Hannaford parent company a rival bidder for Market Basket
The cut in hours was the result of a directive to store managers from company executives that employee work schedules must reflect the flow of business at the supermarkets. And with aisles of empty shelves in the fresh food departments and few to no customers, there isn’t much business to support a typical payroll of hundreds of employees at each of the chain’s stores.
In a statement, the company’s co-chief executives, James Gooch and Felicia Thornton, said none of the workers are being laid off and they still remain employees of Market Basket.
The statement from Gooch and Thornton issued through a spokesman said:
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In Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley
has established a hotline to help Market Basket employees with their work situation.
Some Demoulas part-timers have taken jobs at other supermarkets, including Hannaford Bros. Co.
Meanwhile, Hannaford’s parent, Belgium-based Delhaize Group, is offering to buy part or all of Market Basket, which competes with it in markets throughout New England, said people familiar with the negotiations. The offer is competing with the bid of Arthur T. Demoulas, the ousted president, who is trying to buy out his relatives and regain control of the company.
Arthur T. Demoulas was fired in June by the company’s board of directors, which is controlled by his cousin and rival, Arthur S. Demoulas Arthur T. has not offered to sell the 49.5 percent owned by his side of the family.
Market Basket’s board of directors has only said it is evaluating several offers. A spokesman for Hannaford could not be reached for comment.
The competition could make it more difficult for Arthur T. to regain control of the business, especially given his strained relationship with Arthur S. and other relatives who have rebuffed his efforts to reach a sale agreement and repair its operations.