Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

Boyd spoke to more than 750 members here at the first of three UTU regional meetings. Meetings also will be held in Washington, D.C., in July and in New Orleans in August. The issue most on the minds of Reno attendees was the tentative contract between the UTU and most of the nation's major railroads. UTU members will be asked to ratify that agreement in July.

A consequential component of the tentative agreement is control, ownership and operation of remote control technology. "The issue is not whether change is going to occur," Boyd said. "The issue is who is going to control the new technology, who is going to own the new technology and who is going to operate the new technology."

Boyd explained how the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) walked away from an ability to control technology in Canada and, as a result, lost thousands of jobs there to the UTU. Now, Boyd said, the BLE is hoping to take those jobs from UTU members in the U.S. "What your UTU has won for you is the ability to control your own destiny," Boyd said. The UTU agreement also offers protection to engineers, he noted.

"Your UTU national officers and negotiating committees have broken free of a failed tradition among other organizations that simply react to events," Boyd said. "Your UTU is shaping events by meeting challenges with vision, courage and leadership that are defining a new frontier in labor relations. We are the labor union for the 21st century."

The UTU's objectives, Boyd said, "are as clear as the history of the labor movement: more, now. That means a combination of wages, health care, job safety, employment protections and retirement benefits. When viewed as a package, UTU contracts give us the peace of mind in knowing we have a secure future for ourselves, our spouses and our children."

The UTU negotiating team spent much time explaining the proposed national agreement, which includes wage increases and elimination of entry rates in addition to UTU members controlling, owning and operating remote control devices. The agreement also puts UTU in the driver's seat with regard to health care.

The carriers, which are demanding increased cost sharing from other unions - and which already have won increased cost sharing from one major rail union - are taking a different tack with the UTU. The carriers agreed to a UTU demand for a status quo pending a study of alternative means of controlling soaring health-care costs.

That study will include plan redesign, cost containment, administrative changes and vendor review. Any agreement would be subject to member ratification. Should the matter go to binding arbitration, the arbitrator would be required to consider UTU study evidence. This separates UTU from the other rail unions, Boyd said.

"In every aspect of our lives, it is an inevitable fact that we must confront change," Boyd said. "Change occurs whether we are ready or not and whether we want it or not. Were our fathers and grandfathers successful in attempting to stop the introduction of diesel locomotives?" he asked rhetorically. "Many of you have first-hand experience in how we couldn't stop elimination of the caboose.

"Remote control is technological change," Boyd said. "From an Air Force base in Florida, U.S. servicemen use remote control to fly unmanned warplanes in Afghanistan. From an office in Jacksonville, CSXT dispatchers use remote control to open switches in Michigan. And, every day for the past decade in rail yards across Canada, our brothers and sisters have used remote control to switch freight cars.

"If change is inevitable - and it is - then we must devise a strategy to make change our ally and not our enemy," Boyd said. "Those who deny change are really condemning themselves to be controlled by it. They will lose in the short run as well as the long run. This is because history records that everyone who has resisted change has lost."

To read the text of President Boyd's Reno speech, click here.