Demonstration against the strike at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery

(Montreal) Mourners on Sunday appealed to the Quebec government to act to resolve the months-long standoff between workers and management at Montreal’s Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery, the most big in Canada.


A strike by more than 100 maintenance and office workers has kept the wrought iron gates of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery closed to the public since mid-January, except for a few days in the spring.

The labor dispute left more than 300 bodies unburied, with the remains stored in freezing temperatures in an onsite depot, the cemetery said.

Jimmy Koliakoudakis, whose mother died in February, said his family members are “suffering”.

“Families are asking for only a little dignity and humanity in this labor dispute,” he said, protesting alongside a handful of others outside the cemetery on Sunday afternoon. We are stuck in the middle. »

“I don’t understand why the government doesn’t take a tougher stance or a more direct step in this labor dispute,” he added.

Others saw no choice but to sneak onto the pitch.

Nancy Babalis said she still came almost every weekend to visit the plot of her 13-year-old son, who died 10 years earlier, minus a day.

“I sneak in every weekend. I found a place where the fence is higher, she said. If it was their child or loved one there, they would do the same. »

Mme Babalis called the stalemate and the ongoing shutdown “inhuman”.

A tentative agreement between management and the cemetery maintenance workers union was rejected last month.

Both parties had agreed to support the recommendation of the province’s chief mediator, Quebec Labor Minister Jean Boulet said June 15, calling the potential deal an “excellent development.” But the cemetery maintenance union finally rejected it.

Gardeners have been without a collective agreement since 2018, and office workers, who launched the strike in September, have not had one since 2017.

Jean Boulet wrote Thursday in a message posted on Twitter that the parties would meet him separately on Monday.

“This conflict has been going on for too long and has significant consequences for human dignity and for the families affected,” he said.

Cemetery spokesman Daniel Granger said he hoped to find a solution “as soon as possible”.

Waist-high grass and branches tossed to the ground by an April ice storm cover the grounds of the cemetery, which sprawls along the north side of Mount Royal. A groundhog sitting at the base of a headstone was shrouded in the overgrown grass on Sunday, the only creature visible on the property.

“Now that all the leaves are on the trees, you don’t see that the branches are broken. We have one, two, three, four tree branches falling every day. This makes it dangerous for people to walk through the cemetery, Granger said. There is a big cleaning that needs to be done. »


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