By TIM ROWDEN
Editor-in-Chief
After a decade of effort, Cannon Utility Services has signed on as a signatory contractor with IBEW Local 309 and Laborers Local 100.
A women-owned business, Cannon Utility Services’ primary focus is horizontal directional drilling (HDD) for utilities including phone, cable, sewer, water, trenching, excavation, hydro-vacuuming and locating. Cannon also does forestry work utilizing mulching mowers to clear right of ways for Ameren Illinois.
Melissa Russel is president and owner and Angie Causey is vice president. They take care of the operations of the business operations, estimating, and now union contracts and hiring resourcing.
“I have been meeting with Cannon sales representatives Jay Russell and Mike Causey for about a decade to bring their low voltage boring crew into the IBEW family,” said Chris Hankins, business manager of IBEW Local 309.
Hankins said one of the perks for Cannon of becoming a union contractor, in addition to qualifying them for more work, is access to union health benefits.
“They had to go out and find benefits before, now they’re going to get benefits from the union hall and the union plan. But they’ll get better rates and better benefits with the union plan.”
Cannon sales representative Mike Causey said the union contract will help keep trained workers on board and open Cannon to more municipal work.
“We’ve been around since 2010,” Causey said. “They’ve wanted us for a long time. They worked on us for a decade. We’re wanting to get bigger and better work. It seems like every time someone calls us they say ‘Can you do this work,’ and the second question they ask is ‘Are you union?’ We want to get in more with our municipalities around the area because we couldn’t bid those jobs, now we can bid everything.”
Cannon is also looking to expand its work with concrete highways and road projects and get more Ameren bid work.
For more information, visit www.cannonutility.com.
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