Creating Profits with Nonunion Workers: A Case Study of Market Basket

Purpose - The study was designed to explore and examine the business relationships of the owners and the employees of Market Basket to analyze the implications of their recent turbulence and decisions. This article focused on two issues - business profit and labor union - to describe the uniqueness of this case. Design, methodology, data, and approach - This article, based on its purpose, applied all three approaches of case studies that are identified and described by Stake (1995), instrumental, intrinsic, and collective, to present the core nature of the issue and to improve and gain a clear understanding of this particular phenomenon. Results - The analysis of this case clearly indicates that seemingly dichotomous concepts of profit and employee welfare are not necessarily antithetical to each other Conclusions - The instant case of Market Basket serves as a testimonial for the rejection of the basic premises of corporate profits and labor unions. This case serves as a model and a practical example for many large retailers, especially the family operated retailers, and workers throughout the world.