MB turns screw on headquarters workers, signage

Signs on cars and picketers may stay a fixture, but those on the building proper will likely be gone today. (Lebanon Voice/Harrison Thorp photo)

Black Thursday came last week, when part timers were told there was no more work for them.

Today may be Black Friday.

In a two-pronged attack on the Market Basket worker uprising co-CEOs Jim Gooch and Felicia Thornton on Thursday told several hundred workers at the company’s Massachusetts headquarters and distribution centers that if they don’t return to work today they will have “abandoned” their jobs and are no longer employed. Also on Thursday, store directors were told to remove all unofficial signage from supermarket buildings.

That means all the pro Arthur T. Demoulas (Artie. T) signs and register tapes from other supermarkets that were a fixture during the four-week standoff will be removed today unless store directors intend to defy management’s orders.

The effort is seen as a desperate attempt by Gooch and Thornton to try to bring customers back to the foundering former supermarket giant, which has lost tens of millions of dollars during the four-week job action and customer boycott.

Since the store boycott began Rochester, Milton and Lebanon residents have been largely shopping elsewhere, with more than 95 percent of customers refusing to cross the picket line.

Meanwhile, all but a handful of the hundreds of employees who have spoken to The Lebanon Voice in recent weeks have said they will work for no one but Artie T.