Grieving families relieved to see workers at Canada’s largest cemetery back on site – Montreal | 24CA News
Though the sound of woodchippers at Montreal’s Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery Monday was a constructive signal for some households, many who haven’t been in a position to go to family members or bury kinfolk for months some have blended emotions.
“I don’t know,” mentioned Jimmy Koliakoudakis, who’s ready to bury his mom. “There’s a lot of different words. Happy is maybe not the best choice. I would maybe say, more relieved.”
Maintenance employees on the cemetery, Canada’s largest, had been on strike since January. They returned to work Monday after reaching a cope with their employer final week. Because of the work stoppage greater than 300 our bodies have been left unburied, together with Koliakoudakis’ mom who died February.
“We’ve been put on hold for so many months and now we can finally start dealing with this,” he advised Global News on the cemetery’s entrance.
Now that work has resumed, households with family members buried on the web site say they’re additionally relieved that they will now sit up for visiting.
“I have my daughter here, Vanessa,” mentioned Michael Musacchio. “She’s been here since May 2021.”
But the households will nonetheless have to attend slightly longer. The cemetery is vastly overgrown, tree and branches that fell throughout final winter’s ice storm nonetheless litter the grounds making some routes impassable, they usually worry it might take some time earlier than all of the particles is cleared.
“I haven’t been contacted,” acknowledged Koliakoudakis. “I don’t know about other people but I don’t think anybody has been contacted by the cemetery that I know of, to proceed with burials.”
What angers him and Musacchio largely is that the strike lasted so lengthy.
“These past six, seven months, we’ve been tortured mentally,” mentioned Musacchio. “We don’t sleep at night.”
Though the grounds employees are again on web site, the households fear that there might ultimately be one other strike when employees’ contract is negotiated once more in 2027.
“(A strike) cannot happen again,” Musacchio confused. “This (work) must be an essential service.”
Office employees are nonetheless on strike and don’t know once they’ll resume negotiations. They have been hoping to return to work similtaneously the blue collar staff however negotiations occurred individually. They don’t know when negotiations will resume.
“Now that most of the employees are back, can we sit down at the table with the boss?” puzzled union consultant Karolyn Dubé.
Meanwhile, households simply hope they gained’t be caught in the midst of one other labour battle sooner or later.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
