WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2013
CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM
®
Volume 159, No. 213
Court enters injunction against
Teamsters in funeral home row
R
eaders of this column
may recall that in late
July of this year, the
Illinois Appellate
Court took the unusual action of reversing a Cook
County trial court and entering a
temporary restraining order enjoining certain picketing actions
of Teamsters Local 727 in its dispute against mega funeral home
operator SCI Illinois Services Inc.
See Daily Law Bulletin, Aug. 20,
2013.
Specifically, the appellate court,
on interlocutory appeal, enjoined
Local 727 and its agents “from
conveying any actual or veiled
threats against any person, also,
refrain from obstructing, hindering, impeding or blocking any person’s entry to or exit from any
funeral site or any facility containing a funeral site … ” The case
returned to the circuit court for a
preliminary injunction hearing.
There have been some significant
developments in the fight since
the appellate court’s temporary
restraining order.
The case got started when collective bargaining negotiations
between Local 727 and Houstonbased SCI soured over several
issues, most notably the company’s proposal to eliminate the
union pension plan for its covered employees. Local 727 picketed and, according to SCI, acted
improperly at the company’s
Chicago-area funeral homes,
causing SCI to seek the injunction the appellate court issued in
July.
Then, on Aug. 19, 2013, Local
727 made an unconditional offer
to return to work. Under the National Labor Relations Act, an unconditional offer to return to work
is exactly what it sounds like: the
union’s capitulation. Local 727, in
effect, was saying that it gave up
and that its members would return to work, without any preconditions.
SCI reacted swiftly but not positively to the union’s offer. Within
two hours after receiving the offer,
the company, by letter, locked out
the employees, prohibiting them
from returning to work.
Meanwhile, the trial court during August held a two-day hearing
on SCI’s request for the preliminary injunction. SCI, as it had in
its application for the temporary
restraining order, claimed that the
union had used bullhorns, blocked
‘‘
Since the
lockout, the
parties have
engaged in some
negotiations.”
LABOR DAZE
FRANK J.
SAIBERT
Frank J. Saibert is chair of the labor and
employment practice at Ungaretti &
Harris LLP. He represents public and
private sector employers nationwide in
labor relations and employment matters.
He is past president of the Chicago
Chapter of the National Human
Resources Association and a former
Lyons Township committeeman. He can
be reached at [email protected].
a widow’s path after she returned
from her husband’s funeral and
accused an SCI supervisor of being a necrophiliac.
The union, according to SCI,
also started bringing a dog or
dogs to the picket lines. SCI proclaimed in a statement, “Despite
the fact that these families were
experiencing the most difficult
times of their lives, picketers repeatedly chose to make these bereaved the target of their cowardly attacks.”
Local 727, unsurprisingly, had a
different take on the matter. It
pointedly noted that during the
several weeks of picketing, none of
the picketers had been ticketed by
the cops. Claimed the local’s secretary-treasurer in a Sept. 20,
2013, statement, “SCI’s request for
an injunction is a last-ditch effort
to prevent funeral employees from
picketing and force them to accept the company’s draconian proposals.”
After hearing evidence, the trial
court, somewhat tracking the appellate court’s earlier ruling, entered a preliminary injunction
against Local 727, its officers and
the picketers. The Sept. 19, 2013,
order, in No. 13 CH 17138, prohibits the Teamsters from 1) “conveying any actual or veiled threats
against any person;” 2) obstructing any person’s entry to or exit
from a funeral site or facility; 3)
using bullhorns or other “noise
amplification devices” during funerals or memorial services; and
4) allowing dogs to be present
during picketing. The order does
not appear to cover a favorite
union prop: the oversized, inflatable rat.
The union has claimed that SCI
essentially is “blatantly and cynically using the Cook County Circuit Court to fuel its anti-worker
media relations campaign” and
believes that the company’s quick
decision to lock out its employees
is proof that it never intended to
negotiate.
Since the lockout, the parties
have engaged in some negotiations.
Copyright © 2013 Law Bulletin Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Law Bulletin Publishing Company.