Not so fast, a federal judge tells the owner of three suburban Detroit newspapers, Erik Larson reports in a Bloomberg News dispatch.
Journal Register Co., a newspaper publisher in bankruptcy for a second time, won’t get a quick ruling on whether it can sell its assets to an affiliate of its current owner. . . .
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein said Tuesday at a hearing in New York that he will review in more detail an objection by a division of the Communications Workers of America regarding how future grievances may be handled by the proposed buyer, 21st CMH Acquisition Corp.
“No one is giving them a free pass in the future,” Bernstein said of the buyer. He asked lawyers for all the parties how the deal will be affected by the March 31 expiration of the union’s collective bargaining agreement and said he will rule later.
Journal Register publishes the Oakland Press, the Macomb Daily and the Royal Oak Tribune, as well as the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun in Isabella County. It notified 844 workers at those papers four weeks ago that the company "will cease all of its business operations and the employment of all employees will cease" on or around April 17, the sale's target date.
Employees have no bumping rights in getting jobs with CMH and their wages could drop, Detroit News business writer Kark Henkel reported last month.
CMH is an affiliate of funds managed by Alden Global Capital Ltd., which acquired the Journal Register four years ago in the previous bankruptcy.
Two unions, The Newspaper Guild and Teamsters, this week began urging a reader and advertiser boycott of the Macomb Daily and Royal Oak Tribune to dramatize their objections to the pending deal. A Newspaper Guild statement says Journal Register "has refused to live up to the successor clauses in the collective bargaining agreements. It has refused to require its purchaser, 21st CMH, to accept the current union agreements."
Earlier coverage
Unions Want Advertisers, Subscribers To Boycott Macomb Daily and Royal Oak Tribune, March 18
Fighting Mad: Newspaper Unions Meet Sunday Over 'Sale' That Seems Cozy, March 3
