The torment has ended for families unable to bury their dead because of the recent labor dispute between gravediggers and cemeteries.
But the Chicago Rabbinical Council wants to ensure it doesn`t happen again.
In the court and legislature, the council is pursuing ways to make sure everyone-no matter what their faith-can bury loved ones the next time disgruntled cemetery workers lay down their shovels.
”When someone dies, they should be buried,” said Barry Schmarak, an attorney whose 78-year-old father`s burial was delayed for a month because of the strike.
Jewish law requires the dead to be buried ”as quickly as possible,”
said Rabbi Israel Fishweicher, the rabbinical council`s executive director. The official seven-day mourning period cannot begin until then.
The remains of Schmarak`s father were interred by union gravediggers hired through an independent contractor before the strike was settled.
The experience, he said, ”was terrible.”
The 43-day strike began Dec. 20 after contract talks disintegrated amid disputes over starting pay and health care. In all, about 1,000 burials were delayed.
The strike was not the first-in 1985, a 17-day walkout delayed several hundred burials.
Now, the council is seeking a permanent court order ensuring families can get to their plots in case of a future strike.
The council wants the order to be patterned after a temporary injunction issued during the strike that required cemeteries to give families access to their plots.
Armed with that January order, many families hired union gravediggers through an independent contractor. In other cemeteries, managers dug graves.
”There is a history of strikes,” said attorney William G. Sullivan, council representative. ”People have legally protected interests to access to these burial plots.”
The Rabbinical Council is also hoping to persuade state legislators to enact a law giving plot-holders more rights. The law now says that those who purchase plots don`t actually own them-cemeteries do, Fishweicher said.
In the eyes of the law, families simply rent the ground, he said.
”We all thought if you buy a cemetery plot, it`s yours,” Fishweicher said. ”But it`s not yours.”
But neither a court order nor legislation requiring access will do much good, said John McDonald, attorney for the Cemeteries Association of Greater Chicago.
Access, he said, is not the answer. Even after families gained access with the temporary order during the strike, they needed labor, he said.
”The idea of access is not a magic answer,” McDonald said. ”The rabbis are hiding behind a word here. They want burials. They don`t want access.”
And any order requiring burials would clash with federal law that gives unions the right to strike and management the right to lock workers out, McDonald said.
The association would likely contest any such order or law obtained by the council, he said.
The union disagrees with McDonald`s assessment.
The rabbis are only seeking access, said Robert Bloch, attorney for the Service Employees International Union Local 106.
”All they`re looking for is the rights of the families to arrange the use of the burial spots,” he said.
Bloch acknowledged that the solution won`t prevent labor disputes but said that ”it will ease the suffering of families in the event of labor disputes.”
The union is planning to work with rabbis in developing legislation, but Bloch didn`t want to give details.
Rabbis are scheduled to meet with legislators soon, Fishweicher said. If legislation is enacted, the council would probably drop the lawsuit, he said. One thing is certain, though-trekking through either the legislature or the court will take time.
But Schmarak said it`s well worth the wait if it can prevent others from going through the kind of trauma he endured.
”I`m glad someone stepped foreward,” he said. ”We have time to take care of this.”
