if there's any money at all, employees get their pay. Shareholders can be forced to go in their pockets and pay employees wages due.

I don't know of this happening to a large corp, but if a local restaurant goes bankrupt, or a local construction company, and the owner is not also bankrupt, they can be forced to pay employees. Usually they are also bankrupt. Not sure if those debts survive through personal bankruptcy.

You may be referring to employees losing retirement or other benefits like that, but the worst of those loopholes have been closed (the pension can't be in the company's own stock, that type of thing)