Preliminary deal reached to end long-running strike that closed Montreal cemetery

Jean Boulet, Minister of Immigration in Quebec City, Nov. 24, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot)

Quebec Labor Minister Jean Boulet says a resolution has been reached in the months-long standoff between workers and management at Canada’s largest cemetery.

Boulet said on Twitter today that the two sides in the dispute at Montreal’s Notre-Dames-des-Neiges cemetery have agreed to support the recommendation of the province’s chief mediator.

The strike by more than 100 maintenance and office workers has kept the cemetery’s wrought-iron gates closed to the public since mid-January, except for a few days in the spring.

About 300 bodies are unburied as a result of the action, with the remains stored at freezing temperatures in an on-site repository.

The cemetery’s spokesman, Daniel Granger, says the closure was hard on families, who clogged the roads to the cemetery on Mount Royal when it reopened for six hours on Mother’s Day.

Éric Dufault, president of the office worker union, says workers will vote on the proposed agreement on Wednesday.