Bruno's Supermarkets union contract rejection request denied by judge

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, April 27 - A federal judge denied Bruno's Supermarkets, LLC's motion to reject its collective bargaining agreements with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1657, ruling that the union did not refuse the company's request to remove successorship clauses from the contracts without good cause, according to a Monday filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

According to judge Benjamin Cohen's ruling, the union modified its proposal after the two sides reached an impasse over whether the successorship clauses should be eliminated.

As previously reported, Bruno's believed that no one would agree to purchase substantially all of its stores as going concerns if the potential buyer was required to accept the union contracts with the clauses.

Although the union originally disagreed with the proposed rejection and reserved its right to strike if the contracts were rejected, Cohen said it eventually made a counterproposal that a buyer would not be required to assume the current CBAs with the clauses if the buyer agreed to negotiate with the union to reach a new agreement that included a successorship clause.

Cohen said both of the purchase offers Bruno's had at the time the union made its counterproposal agreed to negotiate with the union.

Bruno's, a Birmingham, Ala., owner and operator of Bruno's and Food World, filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 5 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Its Chapter 11 case number is 09-10368.

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