TEWKSBURY – Thousands of Market Basket employees rallied outside the Stadium Plaza store Monday on the fourth day of a boycott attempting to get ousted CEO Arthur T. Demoulas reinstated.

Demoulas was fired last month by the board of directors, setting off a round of executives quitting in protest.

Tension between workers and the new top executives has intensified in the past week, first when employees posted signs and posters of Demoulas in the company’s headquarters, and then when as many as a few hundred workers walked out on the job Friday.

Monday’s rally was the largest yet, following the firings on Sunday of eight Market Basket managers.Some of those fired urged the crowd to keep fighting and saying they had no regrets for losing their jobs after speaking out against the ouster of Demoulas. It occurred just a short distance from Demoulas’ home on Clark Road in Lowell, near the Tewksbury town line.

Many of those fired vowed to be back on the job.

“We’re going to come back,” Dean Joyce, the fired warehouse manager, said confidently.

Joyce referred to how word spread over the weekend that he was no longer with Market Basket. That’s not entirely true, he said.

“I’m more with Market Basket now than I ever was,” he said.

Another fired worker, Steve Paulenka, was confident that the show of solidarity from thousands of employees was going to make a difference.

“I have never been more confident that the light at the end of the tunnel is the sun, and it’s not a train coming,” he said.

As the gathering took place outside, the shelves inside the Market Basket in the distance were getting bare, particularly for produce, which receives the most regular deliveries.

Some employees came from the chain’s lone Maine store, in Biddeford. A town official from Epping, N.H., said the town’s Market Basket was the best thing ever to happen to the town.

The Burlington store sent two busloads of workers, and others also came by bus. Many wore T-shirts or had signs declaring which store they worked for.

So many people packed the Stadium Plaza parking lot that police had to direct traffic on Route 38, which runs past the plaza, after the rally.

A wide portion of the parking lot was roped off for the rally, leaving many to make their own parking spots in the lot or park along nearby streets.

Those who spoke said a boycott of the company would be enough to get Demoulas – and their company – back.

A boycott is necessary, fired 49-year buyer Joe Garon said, “as hard as that is to say.”

“We cannot feed the greed,” he said. Garon said in an interview he had no regrets at being fired. “I’ve been terminated, but, boy, I feel good looking at you guys.”

The board of directors was scheduled on Monday to discuss the demand from employees that Demoulas be reinstated. Only the board has the authority to do so.

Tom Trainor, another fired worker, made a passionate rallying cry to keep fighting.

“We only have one goal,” he said. “Bring ATD back,” referring to Demoulas.

“We’re not going back to work,” Trainor added. “We’re going to shut this company down.”

Demoulas has not spoken publicly since losing his job. His children, who were watching the rally from inside a car parked near a truck atop which people spoke, politely declined to comment.

Employees have gained the support in recent days of more than 30 legislators and several mayors across Massachusetts.

State Sen. Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat, started a petition in support of the boycott following Friday’s rally. Seeing employees risk their livelihoods made him want to stand with them, he said.

“I’m not going into that store until they listen to all of you,” said Finegold, who is running for state treasurer.

“If they’re not going to listen to all of you,” he said of the company’s new executives and board of directors, “they’re going to listen to all of us.”

Follow Grant Welker on Twitter and Tout @SunGrantWelker.

For more on this story read Tuesday’s Sun or click on http://www.lowellsun.com.

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