Peace in the Cemetery

The striking gravediggers of Calvary Cemetery went back to work last week. For seven days, New York's Cardinal Spellman had led a corps of seminarian strikebreakers (TIME, March 14). A delegation of strikers' wives had visited the cardinal without result, and charges of "Communist domination" and "union busting" had flown back & forth. Then the striking cemetery workers, having cut loose from the Red-edged Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers of America, C.I.O., got a new charter as Local 365 of the Building Service Employees, A.F.L. The day the charter came through, the cardinal sat and talked things over with Vice President David Sullivan of the Building Service international.

Next morning an agreement was announced: a wage raise of 8 1/3%, to $64.35 for a 48-hour, six-day week--the same pay offered previously by the cardinal on condition that the men return as non-union individuals. Cardinal Spellman waived the condition, recognized the new union. Both sides agreed to set up a three-man panel to investigate "future adjustment of hours." The cardinal's seminarians laid down their spades and went back to their classes.

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