Labor strife in California cemetery

I find it somewhat uncanny and unusual timing but, on the day after we celebrated Labor Day, we are bringing you this article from the the San Mateo (California) Daily Journal that pertains to a strike of cemetery workers at the Skylawn Memorial Park in that city.  Over the last year we have brought you articles that pertain to cemeteries and the struggles that some of them have on the revenue side.  And, we have brought you issues on staffing, such as this article from just last week, where we indicated that weekend work is difficult to cover at this point in time in most types of businesses.

It turns out that the workers at the Skylawn Memorial Park walked off their jobs about two weeks ago to protest what they term unfair labor practices.  According to those workers, the cemetery has went from 16 workers down to 8 workers and those eight that remain are doing all of the work — and it results in (sometimes unwanted) overtime and extra weekends on.

According to at least one cemetery worker, who is represented by SEIU Local 265, they would like the cemetery to hire more workers and bargain fairly for a new updated employment contract.  The cemetery workers have been without a contract since the last one expired over 20 months ago on December 31, 2017.

The cemetery is owned by privately held Northstar Memorial Group, a funeral home and cemetery operator whose website lists that they own and operate over 75 funeral home and cemetery locations in eleven states across the United States.  Skylawn Memorial Park’s General Manager, Richard McCown, is quoted in the article saying, “We value our employees and anticipate a successful agreement with them in the coming weeks.”  Again, according to the newspaper article, the cemetery is currently in active contract negotiations with Local 265.

Funeral Director Daily take:  It’s impossible to take a side on this issue with the limited knowledge that we have.  However, as we said in our Labor Day edition, business will work best when equity stakeholders, management, and labor all do well.  That triumvirate of happy people can really make a business hum when they are all moving in the right direction.  And, as we also said yesterday, sometimes the marketplace will dictate how those happy mediums get taken care of.

Related:  See a location map of Northstar Memorial Group’s locations here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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