“It’s inappropriate for children to have a casket, especially 5- and 6-year-olds who are returning to school after probably some of the most traumatic times we’ve had in the last 18 months,” Superintendent Bernard Bragen told NJ Advance Media.

When students and staff arrived at Lincoln Elementary School on Friday, they encountered a funeral casket with an image attached depicting the toe-tagged feet of a dead body, said the news outlet.

The image included the logo from LIUNA Local 77, a union representing construction workers in South and Central New Jersey, and said, “Irresponsible contractors are killing our middle class wages.”

Bragen said he asked members of the union to remove the casket.

“They said, ’tough s—-,’” he said. Bragen then took matters into his own hands by knocking the casket to the ground and covering it with a tarp.

Bragen told the outlet that he believed the protest had to do with a $9 million expansion project at the school. He said that according to state law, the school district was mandated to hire the lowest bidder for the project, which turned out to be Pal-Pro Builders of Bergen County.

LIUNA Local 77 has claimed Pal-Pro Builders doesn’t hire laborers from the area, and this marks the second incident this week that the union has protested the company being awarded the project.

On Wednesday, students at Lincoln Elementary School were greeted on the first day of school by a giant, inflatable rat. (Classes were canceled on Thursday due to the severe storms in the region, making Friday the second day of the school year.) “Scabby the Rat” is a commonly-used symbol for labor protests across the county, and it is typically inflated outside businesses that are accused of unfair practices.

Rob Lewandowski, a spokesperson for LIUNA, told Patch reporter Sarah Salvadore: “We believe that practices like this hurt the construction industry, hurt school districts and property owners who employ the likes of Pal-Pro, and call into question hiring practices and other potential workplace issues.”

“I don’t know that Pal-Pro did or didn’t hire anybody,” Bragen told NJ Advance Media about the situation, saying he never heard from the union before they started the protest. “They never afforded me the opportunity to have a conversation.”

Keith Hahn, who is running for mayor of Edison, was at the school and confirmed the presence of the coffin and inflatable rat to NJ Advance Media. He said that he had confronted the union protesters, telling them it was an inappropriate gesture and an inappropriate venue.

“They didn’t want to hear it. They insisted on leaving it there,” Hahn said. “Parents were very angry.”

LIUNA Local 77’s Facebook page was hit with complaints from people in the area angry about the casket protest. One message in a comments section, which included a photo of the coffin, said: “As a union-paying member and also as parent of small children, I find the tactic used by this local union to be irresponsible.”

Another commenter wrote, “This is NOT ok outside of an elementary school. You people are sick and have no consciences. You don’t involve kids in politics and these little kids don’t understand things like adults. How many of these innocent kids lost someone recently?”

In a statement to Newsweek, Reverand Carl Styles, business manager of LIUNA Local 77, acknowledged placing the inflatable rat and coffin outside the school. He said the coffin “symbolizes how bad employment practices kill middle-class jobs.”

“Some have argued that its use was inappropriate for an elementary school setting. We agree and have begun a review of the process and will work to ensure we don’t make this mistake again,” Styles said. “We think it is not good to expose young children to the imagery, and we also think it distracts from the issue-at-hand—that a contractor hired in Edison is using what appears to be discriminatory hiring practices.”

Styles said that the union apologizes for “poor judgment” by placing the casket at a school: “We will work to do better, and we hope Edison Township Public Schools will, too. We need to send a message that Edison Township Public Schools will not reward discriminatory business practices. On this matter, we should ALL be on the same side!”