What I saw in the big bankruptcy I was involved in:
Management at that company was very committed to long-term employees and got them good severance packages as part of the reorganization plan they presented and got approved by the creditor committees and the court. These were people laid off at the end of the reorganization.
Can Windstream's management pull this off? Do they want to? I don't know.
Interesting issue that @XYQ4YwO-2hch brought up, although I highly doubt that in today’s economy anybody cares about committed workers.