It's a story told so often that we know the ending well before the last chapter. Company suffers losses, bankruptcy looms, and workers sacrifice their rights to collective bargaining, and lose their pension and benefits to save their jobs while company executives not only keep their benefits and pensions, but also receive generous bonuses.

It's a national embarrassment that the same executives who steer a company to the brink of collapse are given preferential treatment with the remaining assets. What's alarming is that current law actually favors this type of activity.

The Bankruptcy Code ranks creditors that have a financial claim against the company in bankruptcy proceedings. The ranking assigned by the Code determines which entity has priority to get paid first from the company's remaining assets. Workers who have pensions with investments in company stock are ranked as shareholders and are, in fact, among the last to be paid.

It's become standard operating procedure for companies to use bankruptcy or the threat of bankruptcy to shake down its employees.

Read the rest here: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/91221-slashing-workers-wages-and-benefits-why-not-ceos-too-rep-john-conyers