Families face delays burying loved ones with grave digger industrial action Melbourne General Cemetery. GRIEVING families face delays burying their loved ones as grave diggers take industrial action over a pay claim. Cemetery workers at Melbourne, Springvale and Bunurong have imposed bans and a series of stopworks after talks with management broke down. Southern Metropolitian Cemeteries Trust CEO Jonathan Tribe said the disruption had forced Springvale to cap the number of daily burials to six compared to the normal 15. "They are digging the graves, the coffin is being put in but then they are walking away and leaving a mound of earth on the side of the grave," he said. ``We're having to go back and fill that grave in. I've already had one family very distressed waiting to see the grave filled in after burying their loved one. The Australian Workers Union members are also refusing to open up existing graves to allow the burial of more family members. State Health Minister David Davis said the union was acting insensitively and irresponsibly. ``If Mrs Jones, for example, has died and wants to be buried with her husband in a family plot the bans will effectively prevent her having a burial in the plot because of the union bans," he said. Mr Davis said it was extraordinary that the union would seek to leave graves unfilled. "It's clearly a public health and safety issue and I think it's irresponsible," he said. Mr Tribe said the disruption was causing a backlog of burials which would have a profound effect on the community and grieving families. ``This is just basically a disruptive action which is designed to put pressure on the management of cemeteries to capitulate in terms of the EBA negotiation," he said. Mr Tribe said that negotiations had dragged on for 15 months and the union had rejected five separate offers without making any counter proposals. The AWU is taking protected industrial action under workplace laws but management will seek the intervention of Fair Work Australia. AWU organiser Adrian Colebrook denied families were affected by the union's action and said the bans were directed against management. ``What we've been very careful to do is make sure we don't impact on families when they are grieving, obviously," he said. Mr Colebrook said that the Government was trying to take away various conditions from the workers and was trying to bully them into submission. ``We have actually said to them that the headline rate of increase that the Government has offered would be acceptable to us if we maintained our conditions," he said.