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Republic Airways Holdings Inc.’s future was in doubt after the local pilots’ union recommended against allowing members to vote on the carrier’s contract offer, Bloomberg News reported today.  The leadership of the Teamsters’ local is objecting to language in the contract preventing it from encouraging members from taking positions at other regional airlines, Local 357 President Jim Clark said. The national union could override the local’s decision and present it to members, he said. The lack of an agreement is one reason behind a pilot shortage that Republic has warned threatens the company’s future. The alternative to an accord is court-supervised restructuring, said Matt Koscal, vice president of human resources for the carrier, which makes regional flights for larger airlines.

Republic Airways Holdings Inc., struggling with a pilot shortage as it works to reach a new contract, said the company may have to seek bankruptcy protection if its latest labor proposal fails, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. While the regional airline wants to secure an agreement, the alternative is court-supervised restructuring, said Matt Koscal, vice president of human resources. Chapter 11, which protects a company from creditors while it reorganizes, is one possible type of restructuring, Koscal said on Friday. “That’s not what we’re focused on right now, but we feel it’s fair for us to explain to all our employee groups where we stand as an organization,” Koscal said. “The status quo is no longer an option.” Koscal’s comments amplified an online letter to pilots in which eight Republic executives said a contract rejection would force it to consider “non-consensual restructuring.” The language was the strongest yet from Indianapolis-based Republic in urging approval of a deal after talks dating to 2007.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is requiring private equity managers that want its money in the future to disclose what kinds of fees they’re pocketing from portfolio companies, a move that would likely shed more light on how much the industry earns, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The move comes as the nation’s largest pension investor, with more than $300 billion in assets under management, has launched talks with other institutional investors to develop best practices regarding what types of information private equity managers should share with limited partners, said Ted Eliopoulos, the pension fund’s chief investment officer. CalPERS is working with the Institutional Limited Partners Association, a trade organization representing fund investors, to define what kinds of information private equity firms should be willing to disclose, Eliopoulos said.

A judge on Monday held off ruling on whether Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. can modify parts of its collective-bargaining agreements (CBAs) with unions, something the grocer has indicated would be the first step toward a more drastic overhaul of the CBAs, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain met with lawyers for the company and the unions after hearing testimony yesterday, and he later said that they should negotiate more and come back to court on Wednesday with a compromise. A&P wants to change a provision in the contracts that allows senior employees in stores that are closing to take the jobs of lower-paid employees with less seniority at other locations. The other change would cut the amount of severance pay A&P has to immediately pay to employees being laid off.

Patriot Coal Corp. hopes to unload more than $400 million in debt in a newly announced deal to sell its remaining West Virginia mines, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Patriot said yesterday that an affiliate of the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund (VCLF), an environmentally focused nonprofit, is in line to acquire two Patriot mining complexes in West Virginia as well as mining permits. As part of the deal, which Patriot hopes to subject to higher bids through a court-overseen auction process, VCLF would take responsibility for more than $400 million in liabilities — workers’ compensation, black lung and environmental — tied to the assets. VCLF Chief Executive Tom Clarke said that mining operations would continue at Patriot’s Federal complex in northern West Virginia, where the organization will seek to reduce carbon emissions. The deal covers most of the assets that would remain if Patriot closes a previously announced sale of most of its mines to Blackhawk Mining LLC. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

In related news, busloads of United Mine Workers of America miners and retirees roared in protest outside Patriot Coal headquarters yesterday, as the bankrupt company looks to nix a union contract that includes pension contributions and health benefits, the New York Times reported today. From a makeshift stage on the bed of a tow truck, UMWA President Cecil Roberts bellowed out to a camouflage-clad crowd of 1,500 to 1,800 miners and led them in a march to nearby Patriot headquarters. UMWA packed 22 buses of miners from Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, according to union spokesman Phil Smith. Read more.

A&P has asked a bankruptcy court judge to set aside two key union provisions — bumping rights and full severance pay — after reaching a negotiation impasse with labor groups, USA Today reported today. The supermarket wants to completely eliminate bumping rights, saying that the administrative burden and costs associated with allowing workers to do that are too high and undesirable to would-be buyers of its stores. Bumping rights allow employees who work the longest for the company and at a store slated to close to take the job of a less senior worker at a supermarket that will continue to operate. The other sticking point is the amount of severance pay A&P will pay and when, the documents filed late Tuesday indicate. The supermarket has proposed paying employees who will lose their jobs as part of the bankruptcy 25 percent of the severance they are entitled to on a "timely basis" with a maximum cap of $10 million for all workers. The rest of the severance would be paid later, depending on how much remains after the stores have been sold and what other A&P creditors are due as part of settling the bankruptcy case.

The union representing 2,500 active and laid-off Patriot Coal Corp. employees said the company can't make a case for rejecting its contracts with workers, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Patriot has told the bankruptcy court that it must get out of its union contracts or it will "be forced to liquidate in a matter of weeks." The company is in the process of selling its assets and contends shaking off the union contract is essential to making the transaction work. Blackhawk Mining LLC has made an offer for some of the mines but said that it isn't willing to absorb pension obligations to workers. The United Mine Workers of America says that Blackhawk had offered to hire some workers and operate with a modified contract, but Patriot moved to end the contract completely.

U.S. energy companies are planning more layoffs, asset sales and financial maneuvers to deal with a recent, sudden drop in U.S. crude-oil prices to under $50 a barrel, the lowest level in four months, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The companies had been banking on a rebound in oil prices in the second half of 2015 after falling sharply late last year. Prices began to regain ground in the spring, rising so quickly that some American producers started hiring back drilling rigs to pump more crude. That speedy return to the oil patch and the threat of new Iranian oil production have pushed down prices more than 20 percent over the past six weeks to $48.14 as of Friday. Oil-field services providers that help drill wells have quietly revealed job cuts that were deeper than initially announced, and warned of more layoffs to come. Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Inc., two big service companies that plan to merge, disclosed last week that they had cut 27,000 jobs between them, double the 13,500 they announced in February.