Locked-out Teamster funeral directors rally against SCI

Funeral home workers rally on 100th day of lockout.

Locked-out Teamster funeral home employees marked their 100th day on the picket line with a rally before a Chicago-area funeral home yesterday. The rally was attended by political, religious and labor leaders who support the Teamsters' fight to preserve health care and retirement benefits. Their employer, funeral giant Service Corporation International, wants to strip those away.

SCI locked out 59 funeral directors and drivers from 16 of the 59 funeral homes it owns in the Chicago area. As Teamster Angela Anello explained to Inside Booster:

All we are asking for are salaries and benefits that are commensurate with those at the other funeral homes in the Chicago areas.... 

(We) agreed to a pay cut. The next deal, we took a pay freeze for three years. Now, they want to tout a generous pay increase but also decrease our benefits. 

John T. Coli.

The event featured guest speakers, including Teamsters Joint Council 25 President John T. Coli, state Sen. Bill Cunningham, state Rep. Kelly Burke, Chicago Fire Department chaplain Fr. Thomas Mulcrone, state Sen. Tom Cullerton, Teamsters Central Region Vice President Becky Strzechowski and Chicago Alderman Nick Sposato.

Teamsters Local 727, which represents the workers, explains:

With more than 1,400 funeral facilities, SCI is valued at approximately $4 billion and has seen its stock price rise 94 percent in just two years. 

Local 727 urges all Chicago-area residents to support community-owned funeral homes. Recommended funeral home alternatives can be found at www.IntegrityInIllinois.com.

Anello said SCI's business model relies on the local funeral directors, who are part of the community:

Becky Strzechowski

We know the families. We pride ourselves on following up on all the details for the families we serve. We also have strong relationships with all the area churches and clergy... 

The replacements are not from here. They don't even know the simple things such as how to get from point A to point B.... 

While our work is physically demanding and we work very long hours, it's very rewarding work. We all do it because we want to. Our job is to ease the transition from life to death and to make it easier to bear. There are hundreds of details to get it right. Hiring scabs is like turning this into a factory.

Today's Teamster News 09.28.13

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Chicago Teamsters reject Rahm Emanuel’s bid for contract concessions on 461-11 vote  Chicago Sun-Times   ...Already feuding with police, firefighters, teachers and other public employees, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration sought but failed to win concessions this week from the only major labor group that had supported Emanuel’s election...
Funeral Industry Giant SCI Committed Unfair Labor Practices, Labor Board Says  teamster.org   ...Region 13 of the National Labor Relations Board has found merit in several unfair labor practice charges filed against funeral industry giant Service Corporation International (SCI), which has locked out 59 funeral directors and drivers at 16 Chicago-area funeral homes...
Teamsters To Vote Wegmans' Offer  teamster.org   ...Workers will cast ballots on the company’s proposal that would eliminate the pensions of more than 900 of its Rochester employees and dramatically reduce their compensation package...
Beware of Outlandish Claims About Economic Benefits of U.S.-EU ‘Free Trade’ Deal  Public Citizen   ...The study ignored the predictable social and economic costs that would result from such extreme regulatory rollback, such as an increase in the incidence of foodborne illness and a rise in financial instability...
4 Reasons Why the White House's Domestic-Worker Protections Matter  Mother Jones   ...Starting in January 2015, the federal labor laws that currently ensure minimum wage and overtime protections will be extended to the nation's direct-care workers—some 2 million people who perform jobs like caring for the elderly and the disabled. And yesterday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the California Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights into law, expanding the legal protections for its estimated 360,000 (PDF) domestic workers...
How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers  The Atlantic   ...Taxpayers fund the stadiums, antitrust law doesn't apply to broadcast deals, the league enjoys nonprofit status, and Commissioner Roger Goodell makes $30 million a year. It's time to stop the public giveaways to America's richest sports league—and to the feudal lords who own its teams...
Sen. Ron Wyden: NSA 'repeatedly deceived the American people'  The Guardian   ..."the leadership of NSA built an intelligence collection system that repeatedly deceived the American people..."
NSA employees used surveillance system to spy on spouses, lovers  Raw Story   ... a woman told the NSA that she’d recorded a conversation between her husband and a foreign telephone number because she suspected he’d been unfaithful...
School Bus Companies Ordered to Restore Lost Wages to ATU 1181 Workers  LaaborPress   ...Judge Matsumoto ordered the companies to return to the bargaining table they abandoned in March; bargain in good faith with the union; rescind the wage and benefit cuts and all other terms and working conditions previously imposed by the companies; and restore the wages, benefits and working conditions in effect at the time the companies imposed their cuts...
I worked all week for free?!: The horrifying, true story of $0 paychecks  Salon   ...Photos provided to Salon by the National Guestworker Alliance, the group behind the work stoppage, show checks reading “No Dollars and No Cents,” and a page dated June 25 warning guest workers on H-2B visas that, “Any worker who does not show up for your assignment will be immediately removed from Mister Clean Housing and will be reported as AWOL (Absent Without Leave) to ICE (Immigration Custom Enforcement)...”
American Workers: Hanging on by the Skin of Their Teeth  Counterpunch   ...Americans are losing faith in the nation’s economic recovery.” Because they don’t see any recovery...

Labor board: Funeral giant SCI broke the law in dispute with Teamsters

Unscrupulous funeral giant SCI broke the law by bad faith bargaining with Teamster employees, threatening them, spying on them and trying to trick members into leaving the union, according to the Chicago region of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The NLRB has also dismissed frivolous and potentially defamatory accusations made by the company against the union.

Service Corporation International (SCI) locked out 59 funeral directors and drivers at 16 Chicago-area funeral homes last month.

John T. Coli, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 727, said:

... the company has been merely grasping at straws, trying to shift the blame on the union with their false accusations. In reality, they are the ones violating the law and mistreating their dedicated employees. 

According to Teamsters Local 727's press statement,

SCI’s numerous unfair labor practices forced the union-represented funeral workers to strike on July 2. Despite an unconditional offer by the union to return to work, the company locked out workers on Aug. 19. Pickets have continued to protest SCI’s bad faith bargaining and other unfair labor practices. 

The Region of the NLRB now will attempt to reach a settlement with SCI on the charges. Absent settlement, the Region typically issues a complaint, and a hearing in front of an administrative law judge then takes place. 

“Our fight is not over, but this is a victory for working men and women,” Coli said. 

Local 727 urges all Chicago-area residents to support community-owned funeral homes as labor actions continue. More than 60 recommended funeral home alternatives can be found online at www.IntegrityInIllinois.com to aid families in affected communities.

We know you still have a ways to go, but congratulations on a hard-fought victory!