They carried banners but lit no braziers and cut down on the slogans in an action designed to show both solidarity with the cause and sensitivity to the feelings of the public.
"We have been reasonably discreet," said trade unionist Derek Ormston, who helped organise the Scottish end of a national one-day strike by administrative staff, pall bearers and hearse drivers employed by Co-operative Funeralcare, which has branches throughout Britain.
"We have some placards just saying Transport and General Workers Union - official picket," said Mr Ormston, the T&G's regional industrial organiser in Scotland.
"It's a delicate situation - we are not dealing with a factory that makes a can of beans but with human beings."
Mr Ormston said pickets had gathered at more than a dozen of the Co-op's funeral parlours in Scotland.
"We do not want to unsettle members of the public during what is a stressful time for them anyway. We have stuck to the law and had six pickets at each site and we have concentrated on the main homes."
Steven Inglis, funeral director and a T&G branch secretary, went on strike with three colleagues from Funeralcare's Stirling branch, which was forced to close.
"The job itself offers great job satisfaction," he said. "But we know that today people have been let down or had their plans postponed. You think about that at the back of your mind and there is a great deal of anxiety regarding that.
"We had no other option. It's a regrettable action but we have been forced into it by the reluctance of the management to improve on their position."
Other Co-op workers set up pickets in London and some regional centres in a move to win a pay rise bigger than the 3.5% offer they have rejected.
A Co-operative Funeralcare spokesman said that almost 80% of its staff, most of them members of the union Usdaw, had already accepted the pay deal and its commitment to a review of working hours.
