As Pittsburghers prepared for a warm Memorial Day weekend in 1937, they faced a situation without precedent: simultaneous strikes at two city cemeteries.
The miniature strike wave continued, on and off, for weeks in spring and summer 1937. Gravediggers and groundskeepers at Homewood Cemetery and at St. Mary’s Cemetery along Penn Avenue picketed for higher wages and union recognition, joining a surge of militancy already roiling big industry.
Two walkouts
About than 20 strikers walked out at the Roman Catholic St. Mary’s (now officially called St. Mary Cemetery) on May 22, demanding better pay and working conditions. Cemetery officials claimed the strike began when they sent a worker home “unfit for work.” Workers picketed the cemetery and held out hope that Bishop Hugh Boyle would intervene in their favor. Meanwhile, obituaries in city newspapers cited delayed burials “until settlement of the St. Mary’s Cemetery strike.”
Just as the St. Mary’s workers inched closer to a deal on pay, dozens of their counterparts at the larger Homewood Cemetery walked out as they prepared for Memorial Day — an unprecedented strike in the cemetery’s long history, according to press accounts. They included “grave diggers, landscape gardeners, drivers, laborers, stone cleaners and grass cutters,” all seeking raises and affiliation with the A.F.L. laborers’ union. They demanded a 44-hour week, 65 cents an hour for unskilled work and 75 cents for skilled work.
The Homewood workers picketed, but evidently didn’t interfere with funerals. When American Legion members held a Memorial Day ceremony, they even pitched in to help. As the weeks passed and the strikers held firm, families of the dead took to maintaining the plots themselves, apparently unmolested by strikers. The Pittsburgh Press summarized the situation:
For three weeks the cemetery’s 75 employees have been parading up and down in front of the various gates, wearing big red and white ‘Strike’ signs, while grass has grown long on the cemetery’s lawns and bodies have been placed in receiving vaults instead of graves. They want recognition of their union — General Laborers’ Union No. 1058 — and higher wages. Cemetery officials claim they are ‘asking for the moon.’ The wages cannot be raised appreciably at this time, the officials maintain, because the bulk of the work, which is taking care of private plots, was contracted at fixed prices early in the year.
Deals cut
Despite the officials’ complaints, the workers managed to secure a raise. In late June, they cut a deal for 10 percent raises — less than the 25 percent they demanded — and withdrew their pickets. By that time, more than 30 bodies had reportedly collected in the cemetery’s vaults awaiting burial.
Homewood may have been at peace, but the St. Mary’s workers walked out repeatedly as the months went by. After an initial deal for 62.5 cents per hour, about a dozen men struck again for pay comparable to the Homewood workers’ demands. Police escorted seven workers — identified by the pickets as strikebreakers — from the premises. Another walkout came after three workers were fired and replaced by non-union men.
The last walkout was still unresolved in July, and it’s unclear what became of their demands. Labor peace appeared to return to the city’s cemeteries by midsummer, when obituaries showed little sign of delay. Workers at some sites won their union, however: To this day, the Laborers’ International Union of North America represents workers at several local cemeteries, including Homewood.
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