Labour Dispute Results in Body Backlog
I just stumbled across this story about the labour dispute in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery . As a result, burials can’t take place and apparently people’s remains are starting to pile up, so to speak.
The problems started in May of this year when the management of the cemetery locked out its unionized maintenance workers. Apparently, ongoing negotiations about work conditions and pensions had stalled leaving the workers without a collective agreement.
Since the lockout began in May, no burials or cremations have taken place. The bodies have been kept in a storage facility since that time. However, space in the facility is limited and management is searching for new places to store the bodies until they can be buried or cremated. The most recent suggestion is that the bodies be kept in refrigerated trucks until the cemetery can be reopened.
According to Guy Dufort, the lawyer for the cemetery, for now the cemetery has managed to expand its current storage space so as to accommodate up to 625 coffins and, as of June 12, only 250 of the spaces had been filled. The cemetery receives approximately 40 “new arrivals” per week .
At this rate, the cemetery expects to have enough space to store the bodies until the end of September. However, when and if space runs out, the current contingency plan is to store the bodies in a truck that was previously used for storing frozen food.
Have a great weekend!
Megan F. Connolly
