Gary O'Neill, President

I would like to thank the membership of Local 793 for the confidence they have shown in business manager Mike Gallagher, myself, and the rest of the officers and executive of our local.
I am grateful to be re-elected as president of this union and I will continue to serve members to the best of my ability. I am honoured to be president of this local and I have great respect for the position and responsibilities that go along with it.
The membership has again given Brother Gallagher the mandate to continue for four more years and under his direction we will keep this union moving forward.
Brother Gallagher is passionate about improving the lives of Local 793 members and their families. Having worked alongside him for 20 years, I can assure members that his priorities are family and Local 793. He brings the commitment to improve our union with him each and every day.
Once again, I congratulate Brother Gallagher and all my fellow members of the executive board.

STRATEGIC PLANNING
At strategic planning meetings in April, we came away with new goals to achieve over the next five years. One of those goals was to develop training for business representatives. This will strengthen their abilities to represent Local 793. We have engaged the services of a qualified consultant, Roger Duclos, to provide us with a needs analysis for the development of this program. We are now in the process of developing the program and expect to pilot it in October.
Another goal is to continue to grow the size and strength of our local union. A continued strong work environment will help in this regard, but it will be successful organizing that will enable us to achieve our goal.
To that end, Brother Gallagher recently announced the hiring of organizers Steve Booze for the Windsor-Sarnia areas and Robert Taddei for the Toronto area. We have set both area and sector targets for the next year and we will continue our efforts to be successful in these drives.

ORGANIZING
We recently applied for certification on Wicks Construction and General Contracting Ltd., DDR Landscape Contractors Ltd., Garden River Development Corporation and Innovative Earthworks Ltd., and we are currently working on several other bargaining units. We’ve had a lot of help from Local 793 retirees working at non-union companies who’ve helped us sign cards during organizing drives. We’d like to thank all of the retired members who’ve assisted us.
We need to have that continued support from both retired and active members who end up working at, or know of, non-union companies that we can organize. We all benefit from successful organizing drives, not only for the employment opportunities they bring, but also because they enable us to increase our market share which helps our signatory companies compete and, in turn, helps us at the bargaining table.

NOTE
I would also like to wish all members a safe and prosperous fall season. I hope to see many of you at the upcoming general membership meeting.