Illinois § 1

§ 1.

(a) Every contract, agreement or understanding between a cemetery authority and a cemetery workers' association which totally prohibits burials of human remains on Sundays or legal holidays shall be deemed to be void as against public policy and wholly unenforceable. (b) Nothing in this Section shall prohibit a cemetery authority and a cemetery workers' association from entering into a contract, agreement or understanding which limits Sunday or holiday burials of human remains to decedents who were members of religious sects whose tenets or beliefs require burials within a specified period of time and whose deaths occurred at such times as to necessitate Sunday or holiday burials. Such contract, agreement or understanding may provide that a funeral director notify the cemetery authority within a reasonable time when a Sunday or holiday burial is necessitated by reason of the decedent's religious tenets or beliefs. (c) It shall be unlawful for any person to restrain, prohibit or interfere with the burial of a decedent whose time of death and religious tenets or beliefs necessitate burial on a Sunday or legal holiday. (d) A violation of this Section is a Class A misdemeanor. (e) For the purposes of this Act, "cemetery authority" shall have the meaning ascribed to it in Section 2 of the Cemetery Care Act or the Cemetery Oversight Act, whichever is applicable; and "cemetery workers' association" means an organization of workers who are employed by cemetery authorities to perform the task of burying human remains or transporting remains to cemeteries or other places of interment, and who join together for collective bargaining purposes or to negotiate terms and conditions of employment. (Source: P.A. 96-863, eff. 3-1-10.)