'This Is Hurting the Families More,' Striking Funeral Director Says

On the first day of the first strike in their 67-year association with the Teamsters, a dignified gathering of funeral home directors and drivers congregate under a tent on Kilpatrick Avenue and 103rd Street just off the premises of Blake-Lamb Funeral Home in Oak Lawn.

Typically at this time of day they’d be inside the funeral home working; assisting families in their moments of deepest despair and arranging rooms for visitations and funerals. Instead, they are out walking the picket line on 103rd Street, holding signs accusing Service Corporation International, North America’s largest provider of end-of-life services and products, of unfair labor practices.

“We’re not getting paid because we’re out here,” Pat Quinlan said, a director and embalmer at Blake-Lamb, “but this is probably hurting the families more.”

Contract Talks 'Dead-Ended'

After 60 hours of acrimonious contract negotiations that began June 14, members of Teamster Local 727  voted on Monday to strike against SCI Illinois Services Inc., an affiliate of Service Corporation International and its vast holdings of funeral homes and cemeteries under the Dignity Memorial brand.

Sticking points in negotiations included eliminating the employees’ union-funded pension plan and other benefits, and for employees to start contributing to their health insurance plans.

“Do I firmly say that SCI doesn’t like unions? Do they like to be the ones in control? I don’t know,” Quinlan said, a 24-year employee of Blake-Lamb. “[SCI doesn’t] want to pay our pension anymore. They don’t want us to have healthcare from the union anymore or they want us to pay a percentage and opt out of a legal and educational assistance fund.” 

Larry Michael, managing director for SCI Illinois Services, Inc., contends that while SCI “sincerely values the hardworking men and women in this bargaining unit” that a significant number of funeral directors at 16 SCI-owned funeral homes in the Chicago area already make over $100,000 annually.

“We’ve offered a first-year wage increase that is triple what the Teamsters negotiated for other Chicago-area funeral directors and double what they requested for this group in negotiations,” Michael said in a news release.

Union members asked for annual 3 percent pay increases over the next five years, but it was rejected by SCI on Sunday. SCI countered by offering a 27-month contract offering 6-percent salary increase the first year and 3- percent thirteen months into the contract.

Teamster Local 727 spokesman Brian Rainville called SCI’s final offer “regressive” and a rearrangement of prior contract proposals. Union members have expressed that they are willing to sacrifice money from their own pockets to keep their pension and health benefits.

Following the publication of this story, Rainville said that directors' salaries are capped at $95,000 per the current contract. In a prior press release, SCI contended that the average director earned $80,000 annually before overtime and compensation.

"Any director earning over $100,000 can only do so by working extra hours," Rainville said in an email. "The company has control of overtime through its staffing levels and chooses to understaff and pay overtime rather than hire more directors. This is not clear from their statement and is a very important distinction."

Presently, the Teamster-represented funeral home employees do not have to contribute to their union healthcare plans; SCI pays into the program for them. SCI Illinois Services Inc. also filed a federal lawsuit against the Teamsters in 2011 that is currently pending, involving allegations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization or RICO Act.

SCI claims that the parts of the Teamster pension fund are significantly underfunded at $68 million according to June 2013 actuarial figures, as well as being the target of frequent litigation.

Quinlan disagrees.

“Our pension fund is funded at 94 percent,” he says. 

The Houston-based funeral home giant has been accused of exploiting the relationships by not changing the names of the family-owned funeral homes it has bought up over the years.

The Teamsters maintain that SCI exploits relationships that the homes have building within the community, including SCI-owned Kenny Brothers in Evergreen Park, which still boasts its founding year—1890—on a sign on the front of the building.

A Neighborhood Legacy

Like many of the striking Blake-Lamb employees, most who live in the Oak Lawn community, Quinlan was hired by the late Matt Lamb, whose family sold the Blake-Lamb funeral homes in 1987 after decades in the industry.

As testament to Blake-Lamb’s neighborhood legacy, the funeral home still offers pro-bono funeral arrangements to firefighters and police officers killed in the line of duty, a practice started by the Lamb family in the 1960s.

“I don’t think people know that Blake-Lamb is now owned by a corporation. People still think the Lambs are here,” Quinlan said, who learned his trade as an embalmer working in his parents’ South Side funeral homes. “This is not something we wanted to do. We just couldn’t agree to what [SCI] wanted.”

In the interim, SCI has brought in out-of-state funeral directors to work at the striking Chicago-area funeral homes. Michael said there would be no disruption of service during the strike.

SCI has made no overtures to return to the bargaining table, but the strike is still young.

The members of Local 727, too, have started a hotline (312-206-4123) and a website, IntegrityInIllinois.com, with a list of community-friendly funeral homes where families can make end of life arrangements for loved ones.

A family begins arriving at Blake-Lamb for an afternoon wake. Out of respect, the strikers congregate under the tent canopy; they agreed among themselves not to picket in front of the home during visitations and funerals arranged prior to Monday’s strike vote.