STRIKE: Funeral Home Employees Will Walk

Teamster-represented funeral directors, drivers and embalmers voted overwhelmingly to strike against Houston-based Service Corporation International on Monday evening.

Members of Teamster Local 727 are set to begin picketing SCI-owned funeral homes as early as Tuesday morning.

The striking funeral home directors have vowed not to picket funerals arranged before Tuesday. The strike affects 17 Chicago-area funeral homes, including Blake-Lamb and Chapel Hill Garden South in Oak Lawn, and Kenny Brothers in Evergreen Park.

This is the first time that Local 727 members have walked out since the Teamsters began representing funeral home directors, drivers and embalmers in 1946.

"In my 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," John Liberatore, a director at Piser Funeral Services in Skokie, said in a news release.  "We will not picket any funeral we arranged prior to this vote.

The negotiations between the funeral home directors and SCI with an estimated value of $3 billion reached a dead end when the funeral home giant rejected the union’s best and final offer on June 30, after 50 acrimonious hours of fruitless negotiation.

Members of the union filed unfair labor practice charges against SCI last week, “for engaging in bad faith bargaining by making unlawful omissions and misrepresentations in memos issued to its employees and negotiators.” the Teamsters allege.

According to the union, SCI has already brought in out-of-state funeral directors to run local homes under Illinois licenses.

By the end of the day June 30, SCI had made virtually no movement on its proposals to eliminate the employee pension plan and lift union disciplinary procedures.

SCI has maintained that the Teamsters’ pension plan is underfunded and a target of litigation. The funeral corporation said to be the largest provider of death care services in the United States, has filed its own lawsuit against the Teamsters for its pension fund.

The funeral home employees, who took wage freezes in 2010, said that SCI can afford to maintain these workplace benefits.

A spokeswoman for SCI said there would be no statement following the union’s rejection of SCI’s offer and the vote to strike.

Funeral home directors have been preparing for a possible strike by establishing a hotline (312-206-4123) and website, IntegrityInIllinois.com, to help connect families with community-friendly funeral homes while the strike is underway. A complete list of those funeral homes is available on the website.