More than half the 1,075 burials delayed by the 5-week-old gravediggers strike have now been performed under a compromise that has brought the workers into the cemeteries.
But the attorney for Service Employees International Union Local 106 warned in court Tuesday that the gravediggers` participation in the plan could be about to end because the union and the 23 cemetery owners have not agreed on a new contract.
If that happens, some burials at those cemeteries likely would be halted or delayed again.
”Our employees feel they have not accomplished much, and are re-thinking whether to participate,” attorney Robert Bloch told Cook County Circuit Judge Edwin Berman in court Tuesday.
Berman responded, ”If you feel that you`re slipping because of the cooperation, I could understand your members` not wanting to participate.”
A few minutes later, he added, ”If the union stops cooperating, this whole thing will have been an exercise in futility, and the bodies will start backing up again.”
Berman had ordered the Cemeteries Association of Greater Chicago to give families access to their burial plots and had appointed a coordinator to draw up guidelines under which burials can proceed.
Bloch`s warning came at a hearing at which the coordinator, Don Massaro, reported to Berman that 569 of the 1,075 burials have been completed.
Massaro, executive director of the Catholic Cemeteries Association, also said that 234 more burials are scheduled by Saturday. If the compromise holds up, all delayed burials should be completed within 10 days, Massaro said.
Under the compromise, gravediggers are working through a third company, Action Personnel Services of Lansing. Families hire the crew through Action, and pay $400.
The compromise is not in effect at nine cemeteries, where workers have returned full time.
They returned to four of them on Jan. 18 when the cemeteries lifted a lockout imposed after the strike began Dec. 20. In the last week, they have returned to five others.
Meanwhile, John McDonald, the attorney for the cemetery owners, said the association presented a ”final offer” to the union for consideration Monday. No further talks have been scheduled.
