Cemetery workers on strike

Some two weeks ago, Strube and other members of SIEU Local 265 who also work at the cemetery walked off their jobs to stage an unfair labor practice strike outside the cemetery entrance in an effort to urge the cemetery to hire more employees, end management decisions they believe are unfair and bargain fairly with them as they negotiate an updated employment contract.

“It’s just a steady decline of employees … and they’re not rehiring,” he said. “So we’re understaffed, overworked [and] have to work Saturdays and Sundays.”

Gregorio Rodriguez, president of SEIU Local 265, said the most recent employment contract was signed by the union and the cemetery management in 2013 and the agreement expired Dec. 31, 2017. In the 20 months since the contract expired, he said workers rejected the cemetery’s most recent offer, which was made July 1, citing concerns about the lack of employees hired at the cemetery, the long hours they have been required to work and rules they say have been changed unilaterally by management. Since workers opted to walk out of their jobs Aug. 14, Rodriguez said the union and cemetery management agreed to meet Friday.

In a statement, Richard McCown, Skylawn Memorial Park’s general manager, said the cemetery is currently in active contract negotiations with Local 265.

“We value our employees and anticipate a successful agreement with them in the coming weeks,” he said in the statement.

With fewer and fewer employees to do the crew’s work, employees have worried they may risk injury as they rush from job to job, said Rodriguez, who is also a cemetery worker. Though they are paid for overtime hours, Rodriguez said employees have felt forced to skip meal and rest breaks.

“When there [are] few employees that means that they are not taking their lunch sometimes,” he said.

Rodriguez added employees have wondered whether a new schedule of work shifts, a decision not to reimburse them for their cellphones, which they say they use for work, and disciplinary measures implemented since the union rejected the company’s offer are retaliatory. He added the cemetery is an affiliate of the Texas-based NorthStar Memorial Group, which he said is one of the larger cemetery corporations in the United States.

Stube said he is hoping employees and cemetery management get a chance to resolve the unfair labor practices employees feel they have been experiencing when they meet on Friday. In the months since their contract expired, Stube has seen the rules shift week to week on everything from where union staff members can park their cars and when they talk on their phones, and is hoping they can get on the same page with management about how rules are formed.

“They’re implementing new rules on us, it’s pretty blatant,” he said. “If you want a new rule, you get a piece of paper and you write a rule down and then you tell everybody and inform them.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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