One of New York’s most famous funeral chapels, Frank E. Campbell on the Upper East Side, is locked in a tense battle with New York’s undertakers union, whose contract expired, ironically, on Halloween.
The Madison Avenue home has recently hosted services for songwriter Marvin Hamlisch, artist LeRoy Neiman and hip-hop impresario Chris Lighty, and mourners included Bill Clinton, Richard Gere, Liza Minnelli, Candice Bergen, Sean Combs, Lauryn Hill, LL Cool J, Mary J. Blige, Busta Rhymes and Fat Joe.
Campbell’s funerals have included John Lennon’s (where a decoy hearse was used to fool the press) as well as send-offs for William Randolph Hearst, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Heath Ledger, the Notorious B.I.G., mobster Frank Costello and Ed Sullivan. But despite the mom-and-pop moniker, the formerly family-run Campbell is owned by a “death-care” mega-conglomerate — Houston, Texas-based Service Corporation International, the largest such company in the US.
The current contract for Teamsters Local 813 — the union that includes New York funeral directors — expired Wednesday, and, sources tell us, SCI is now asking its workers to take a 7 percent pay cut over three years and dramatically increasing their health-care contributions.
“This is coming from a company that operates under the name of Dignity Memorial,” said a source, referring to one of the many brands SCI operates. The company owns more than 30 funeral homes in the New York area, according to its Web site, including Riverside Memorial Chapel on West 76th Street and 1,423 funeral homes and 374 cemeteries in North America.
“People think these places are family owned. But it’s a corporation running from Texas,” the source said, adding, “Nobody wants a strike.”
An SCI rep said, “We are currently negotiating with the union and are bargaining in good faith. Further, we are committed to bargain in good faith. We value our employees, who day in and day out provide outstanding care to our client families.”