In a close race, Roseburg School District network technician Tim Stoelb outpolled Bend-La Pine School District secretary Linda Bradetich to become president of Oregon School Employees Association (OSEA). The election took place June 30 among roughly 260 delegates at the union’s annual convention. OSEA’s previous president, Bonnie Luisi, retired and did not seek a second two-year term.
OSEA represents about 20,000 support workers in K-12 school districts around Oregon, as well as in Head Start centers, several community colleges and private contractors that have contracts with the schools. Its members include school secretaries, custodians, cafeteria workers, school bus drivers, maintenance workers, and educational assistants, as well as computer technicians and district office staff such as bookkeepers and payroll and accounting clerks. OSEA affiliated with American Federation of Teachers in 2008, becoming AFT Local 6732.
Luisi, a secretary in Hermiston School District’s special education department, decided to take advantage of an early retirement clause in the contract recently ratified by her chapter in Hermiston. By retiring early, Luisi — a cancer survivor — can continue receiving health insurance benefits until she is eligible for Medicare. She will continue to serve on the OSEA Board as junior past president.
Stoelb, 56, came to work for Roseburg School District after a 21-year informational technology career in the U.S. Navy, where he attained the rank of chief petty officer. After watching bargaining sessions between the union and the school district in 2001, he got involved in OSEA, becoming building representative, steward, unit treasurer and president, OSEA Board member, director of OSEA Zone 5 in Josephine, Jackson and Klamath and Douglas counties, and a trustee on the Southern Oregon Central Labor Council. Stoelb will seek release from his job to work half time in Salem for OSEA. He told the Labor Press his priority as president will be educating the public — at a time when public school budgets are being cut and public employees and their unions have come under attack.
“It would be nice to get people to understand that we’re not the bad guy,” Stoelb said.
