Community leaders back Woodlawn cemetery workers

A proposed budget bill by the Wisconsin governor that would take away unions’ bargaining rights was invoked several times as members of the group South Bronx Community Congress stood with Woodlawn Cemetery workers Monday.

Joining the South Bronx Community Congress, clergy, union leaders, members of the Green Party and the Freedom Party called for support in a protest planned for Monday in front of the cemetery.

“I am here supporting the workers,” said Pastor Doug Cunningham of the New Day United Methodist Church in the Bronx. “The treatment of workers is outrageous. It’s a threat to the economy and the community of the Bronx.”

An ongoing labor dispute brought the Woodlawn Cemetery into spotlight recently. The cemetery management proposed cutting 23 out of 38 landscaping jobs and outsourcing the work to a private firm, the Brickman Group.

While the negotiations between the management and workers’ union are still going on, Dee Knight, the labor community forum coordinator for the South Bronx Community Congress said that the group believes that the management is finalizing the deal with the Brickman Group and getting ready to let go of the workers.

However the Woodlawn Cemetery spokesman Howard Cannon denied the assertion and said that the matter is still under review and no deal has been made as yet.

“Discussions are still going on with the Brickman Group,” said Cannon.

The community leaders claimed that by outsourcing the landscaping work, the cemetery is getting rid of good paying jobs in the favor of cheap labor by immigrant “guest” workers. Teresa Gutierrez from the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights said that bringing in immigrant workers would be an injustice to the Woodlawn workers and the immigrant workers themselves.

“We are struggling to keep jobs in both sides of the border,’’ Gutierrez said. “We don’t want workers from other countries to come and work in hostile, racist environment.”

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