Grieving parents barred from visiting daughter’s grave at cemetery closed due to strike

It’s been months of ordeal for Michael Musacchio and Antoinette Romano, and the pain was recently magnified.

The grieving parents, who lost their 26-year-old daughter Vanessa in 2021, can no longer visit her grave at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery in Montreal.

The largest cemetery in Canada completely closed its doors Jan. 12 when unionized workers went on strike.

“I’m here again to fight, to get into this cemetery, to see my daughter,” said Musacchio.

“Just coming here sometimes puts your mind at rest,” added Romano.

The parents have been fighting for the right to visit Vanessa’s grave for more than a year. Before the current strike, the cemetery was closed at one point on weekends and there were drastically reduced opening hours.

“The cemetery workers are on strike for whatever reason. Those gates should be open,” said Musacchio. “They shouldn’t be put on families. What have we done to deserve not to get in?

“I’m standing in the same spot that I was standing here when I fought to get them open on Sundays, on weekends, that they were blaming COVID rules which never existed.”

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Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery employees on strike agree the decision to close the cemetery to the public is a complete lack of respect for the families affected. They say they sympathize with their pain.

“We were given a card last year. (It said) don’t talk to the families. It’ll feed the rumors or whatever,” said cemetery employee David Battistuzzi. “The office is regularly closed. They say they don’t have money to give us our contract. They’re hiring private security companies and lawyers to battle the families. Basically, they had security guards to keep families because there were so many complaints at the office.”

Several cuts in staff, services and opening hours have long caused the deterioration of the cemetery, families have said. And employees and union representatives agree.

“The work is just piling up and we’re unable to do the jobs that we used to do before,” said Battistuzzi.

WATCH: Grieving Montreal families unhappy with Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery

Blue collar and maintenance workers filed joint union petitions Jan. 31, but the families say they don’t know what to do anymore

“It’s a cemetery and we are here to visit our families, you know. And this is where all we find peace,” said one woman who preferred to remain anonymous.

She says she has tried on several occasions to express her disappointment with the management of the cemetery without success.

A request for comment sent to Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery was not immediately answered.

Musacchio and Romano are vowing to keep fighting.

“They have to sit down and they have to fix this,” said Musacchio. “And it’s an emergency. It’s not something better go on for six months because I’m going to be in their face for six months.”