Cemetery workers protested near Montreal's Jacques Cartier bridge Tuesday as families waiting to bury their relatives demanded an end to a two-month lockout.

'This is unacceptable. We cannot accept to see our loved ones treated that way.' —Paul Chagassi, who has waited weeks to bury his mother 

No bodies have been buried or cremated at the city's landmark Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery since May 16, when management locked out 130 workers who were in a legal strike position.

The families have launched a $6-million class action lawsuit against the cemetery, saying more and more of the deceased are being locked in refrigeration tanks while the gravesites continue to be left untended.

Paul Chagassi, whose mother passed away on May 13, is one of the family members involved in the suit.

"We waited two, three days. We thought it's going be a question of weeks. Now we are almost two months into this conflict and we still didn't bury my mother and 200 other families are in the same position I am in," he said.

Chagassi said the cemetery crossed the line of treating the deceased with dignity when it began storing bodies in refrigerators.

Cemetery workers held a protest near the Jacques-Cartier bridge on Tuesday morning.
(Melissa Kent/CBC)

"It is a refrigerator where they store meat," he said. "This is unacceptable, we cannot accept to see our loved ones treated that way, plus our families."

The cemetery, one of the largest in Canada, is the final resting place for late hockey legend Maurice Richard as well as former premier Robert Bourassa. In some areas, the uncut grass has reached higher than the gravestones while the labour dispute drags on.

Families, union ask cardinal to help

The families as well as the union representing the workers — who are demanding better job security — have called on Montreal's top Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, to intervene and speed up the negotiations.

The cemetery's grass has been left to grow taller than some tombstones.
(CBC)

Chagassi said he approached Turcotte himself, but to no avail.

"I did ask Monsignor Turcotte to talk to me privately and publicly and he didn't respond, saying this is not his job, this is a labour conflict he cannot intervene," he said.

"Well I'm sorry. He is our spiritual leader and as you know, the cemetery is an extension of the church, it belongs to a church, and the church is part of the Diocese of Monsignor Turcotte."

The cemetery workers' union has also urged Turcotte to step in and break the labour impasse. 

'Hurts' to watch families, worker says

The lockout has been hard on everyone, said Arnold McCoach, a cemetery employee who has worked at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges for more than three decades.

Some people who have family members buried at the cemetery have resorted to cutting the grass themselves.
(CBC)

"I can't stand near the fence, and watch the families trying to go in there," he told CBC News.

"That hurts. We're all human. We're trying to do the best we can. This is a difficult strike, the worst one I've ever been in."

Cemetery negotiator and spokesman Guy Dufort said it's unlikely the archbishop will wade into the controversy.

"Cardinal Turcotte has got great authority in moral situations, and religious issues. But this is not a religious issue at all. This is strictly a labour relations issue, and a financial issue," Dufort said.

Management says they have enough refrigerated storage space to last until October.