Union leaders won a battle against Wasco Inc., one of the country's largest commercial masonry companies, after a federal judge ruled that the Nashville-based company can't get out of paying millions of dollars in worker pensions using bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In an opinion that rejected Wasco's debt-payment plan, U.S. District Court Judge Todd J. Campbell said that Wasco executives who paid out nearly $300,000 in bonuses as the company prepared to file for bankruptcy made financial decisions that were "inappropriate and troubling at best." At the time of the bonus payments, Wasco officials weren't making monthly payments into a pension fund that was owed, fund administrators' estimate, $6.3 million after the company cut ties with the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers in 2011. Under Wasco's bankruptcy-exit plan, the company would pay about $1 million into the pension fund instead. In response, Wasco officials said they disagree with Judge Campbell's Dec. 23 ruling and have appealed the decision to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
