The Bashas’ grocery chain has become Arizona’s latest high-profile victim of the current recession as it is seeking bankruptcy protection, Capitol Media Services is reporting this morning. The news comes after Bashas’ tried furiously last week to work out new credit arrangements and confirmed Sunday the chain is closing 10 more stores, which Tribune writer David Woodfill first reported June 30.

The Chandler-based corporation previously had been praised for its innovative, home-grown marketing strategies which has included its namesake mainstream stores, the upscale AJ’s Fine Foods and Food City, which focuses on Hispanic immigrants and lower socio-economic groups. Bashas had expanded while several national grocery chains consolidated over the past 15 years. Still, Bashas has felt the squeeze of recent new competitors such as Wal-Mart Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets, as well as British import Fresh & Easy.

Meanwhile, Bashas’ smaller, regional status might have left it more vulnerable than its bigger rivals during the deepest recession in 50 years or more. Also dragging on Bashas’ bottom line has been a two-year feud with United Food and Commerical Workers International Union. The union might have had some legitimate grievances. But instead of relying on federal law and public sympathy, the union has waged a nasty publicity war against Bashas’ with the intent of driving customers away.

Bashas’ claimed the union’s tactics weren’t working. But the Bashas’ family and the chain’s top administrators were deeply worried about long-term negative perceptions. They reached out to the media to counter the union PR, and filed a lawsuit trying to get UFCW to back off.

With Bashas’ now closing 15 stores this year and laying off more than 10 percent of its 12,000-person workforce, I wonder if it has occurred to UFCW that it has hurt the very people the union claims it was trying to help.

As for Bashas’ future, the chain can only hope that bankruptcy protection works half as well as it has for GM and Chrysler. Capitol Media Services reports Bashas’ wants the leverage of court intervention primarily to negotiate new leases with lower payments for those stores where the chain doesn’t own the space. Bashas’ says it has no plans to liquidate.