E-Malt.com News article: USA: Pittsburgh Brewing Co. to resume talks with unions on a cost-cutting contract

Pittsburgh Brewing Co. said August 17 it will resume negotiations on a cost-cutting contract with its unions, a move that postpones its plan to ask a judge to terminate the existing pact, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review posted August 18.

The company is hoping to accomplish what it could not do in three months of bargaining: convince 160 bottlers, brewers, delivery people and maintenance workers to accept concessions. The labor pact took effect in May 2005, about seven months before Pittsburgh Brewing filed for bankruptcy.

Without cost cuts, Pittsburgh Brewing has said it might have to close the brewery. Its last offer, presented on July 19, would slash wages by 10 percent, increase workers' health-care costs and cap paid vacations at four weeks.

"Nobody wants to willingly give up benefits," said George Sharkey, business agent for Local 144B. "They want concessions across the board - pensions, wages, health care."

Workers pay 12.5 percent of the company's health-care insurance premiums, an increase that wiped out a 35-cent-an-hour pay raise, Sharkey said.

Lampl, who had not been part of the negotiations, said he will participate in all-day talks. Jack P. Cerone, a Chicago attorney who is one of the brewery's owners and secured creditors, had handled negotiations. Cerone has been invited, but it is not known if he will be able to attend, said Tracey Perles, a company spokeswoman.

If the two sides can not reach agreement by Aug. 28, McCullough has scheduled a hearing that day on Pittsburgh Brewing's request to terminate the current pact. The judge said he did not want to create an "artificial deadline" for reaching a settlement, but Robert Sable, attorney for the committee of unsecured creditors, said such a deadline might be helpful. McCullough would have 30 days to render a decision.

The Aug. 28 hearing is slated one day before a hearing on Pittsburgh Brewing's request for another 90 days to have the exclusive right to file a reorganization plan.

The unions are willing to work with any management team that can put together a reorganization plan to keep the brewer operating, said Michael Healey, an attorney for the unions.

"Hopefully, we can save the company," Healey said.

August 17, Pittsburgh Brewing asked the bankruptcy court for permission to hire Chatsworth Securities LLC of Greenwich, Connecticut, as an adviser to develop a model to attract financing and develop a reorganization plan necessary to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Pittsburgh Brewing would pay Chatsworth Securities $10,000 a month.


18 August, 2006