SCI, despite a soaring stock price and healthy profit, is trying to take away their employees' pensions, raise health care costs and freeze wages for new hires. The funeral directors and drivers overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike last night.
According to Local 727's press statement,
SCI, which uses the Dignity Memorial brand name, operates 16 funeral homes with 59 employees in the Chicagoland area. The employees voted in a secret ballot election to reject SCI's June 30 "last, best and final offer". In a vote immediately following the rejection of the offer, employees voted to strike.
"In 40 years as a funeral director I've helped thousands of people through some of the most difficult times in their lives. Striking is not something I ever thought I would have to do," said John Liberatore, a director at Piser Funeral Services in Skokie...
In preparation for a strike, Teamster-represented funeral directors established a website (www.integrityinillinois.com) and hotline (312-206-4123) to direct families to community-friendly funeral homes not affected by the labor action. A complete list of affected homes is available at the site.
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| Preparing for today's strike. |
The Chicago Tribune covered the strike:
Funeral directors and drivers who work at Dignity Memorial funeral homes voted on Monday night to strike against their Houston-based employer, Service Corporation International, according to the workers’ union...
John Liberatore, a director at Piser Funeral Services in Skokie, said the union would not picket any funerals that had been arranged prior to the vote and would direct families to other funeral companies while the strike takes place.Several smaller papers in the Sun-Times chain covered the job action. The main paper refused to carry an advertisement from the union seeking support in its struggle against SCI. The smaller papers in the chain did carry the ad. Later the smaller papers' ad manager accused the Teamsters of "getting them in trouble" for failing to notify them of the Sun-Times' refusal -- even though the smaller papers had an earlier deadline and the ad hadn't been refused yet!
