Tentative Pact Reached in Bay Area Cemetery Strike

A tentative settlement was reached Wednesday in a five-week cemetery workers’ strike that left more than 800 bodies awaiting burial in the Bay Area.

The settlement was announced after all-night talks between Cemetery Workers and Greens Attendants Local 265 and the Associated Cemeteries.

“We feel it’s a good settlement; it’s a decent settlement,” said union spokeswoman Joan Twomey.

The strike began March 28 among 70 workers at eight east San Francisco Bay cemeteries and spread a day later to facilities in Colma and Palo Alto. More than 800 bodies collected in mortuary storage lockers in the last six weeks.

If the contract is ratified when workers vote on it later this week, burials can begin immediately but must be worked into the regular flow of business.

“The biggest problem is when it’s over,” said Pat O’Connor of Roller, Hapgood & Tinney Mortuary in Palo Alto. “The cemeteries can only take so many a day.”

There are no cemeteries in San Francisco, except for a military graveyard in the Army Presidio. Most of the city’s dead are buried in Colma, a few miles south.

It was the fourth cemetery strike in 14 years. In 1971, a four-month strike by cemetery workers left 1,800 bodies stored in sealed caskets. When a settlement was reached, the time taken to bury the bodies was longer than the duration of the strike.