For the past month or so, workers at Market Basket supermarkets across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine have been engaged in a somewhat strange series of militant industrial actions.

They have organized picket lines and ground the company’s business to a halt, but it is not a strike in the usual sense. The workers are not unionized. Several hundred warehouse workers and truck drivers are on what could be called a wildcat strike; the other 25,000 store employees are still showing up for work, while at the same time asking customers to boycott Market Basket.

They are demanding the reinstatement of their recently fired CEO, Arthur T. Demoulas, deposed by his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. Arthur T. is an atypically benevolent corporate head. While Market Basket prices are low enough to compete with the likes of Walmart, workers are paid well, have a retirement plan, receive health care, and take part in a profit-sharing scheme. There is a real (and justified) fear that these provisions will be eliminated with a new CEO or the sale of the company to a larger chain.