Oregon School Employees Association picks new director
Rick Shidaker will succeed Steven
Araujo as executive director of Oregon
School Employees Association
(OSEA). Shidaker, OSEA’s current di-
rector of field operations, will start Oct.
1. Araujo, who is retiring, will stay on
until Dec. 31.
OSEA has close to 19,000 members
statewide — school secretaries, cafete-
ria workers, bus drivers, non-certified
instructional assistants, and others.
Most are employees of K-12 public
school districts, but the union also rep-
resents workers at three Head Start
programs as well as four units of bus
drivers employed in Oregon by UK-
headquartered school bus contractor
First Student. OSEA, which affiliated
with American Federation of Teachers
(AFT) in 2008, is also known as AFT
Broadway Floral
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503-288-5537
1638 NE Broadway, Portland
SEPTEMBER 20, 2013
Local 6732. Executive director —
OSEA’s top staff position — is respon-
sible for overseeing 39 staff at a Salem
headquarters and eight field offices
around the state.
Shidaker, 61, grew up in Greene
Township, Indiana, and worked for a
time on an auto parts assembly line,
where he was a member of United
Auto Workers. He earned a bachelor’s
degree from the University Oregon in
1983, and became an OSEA member
that year, working as a community
school coordinator at Eugene School
District. In 1986 he was elected presi-
dent of OSEA’s Eugene chapter. He
served as chapter president until 1991,
then joined the staff of OSEA as a field
representative handling bargaining and
grievances, and later directing other
field representatives.
Shidaker takes the lead at a time
when OSEA and other unions are un-
der political attack. One top concern
will be an anti-union ballot initiative
that would make Oregon a so-called
“right-to-work” state for public em-
ployees. The initiative — which hasn’t
yet been approved for circulation —
would remove any requirement that
public employees pay any share of the
costs that unions incur to represent
them. It’s aimed at the November 2014
ballot, but Shidaker said OSEA has al-
ready begun discussing strategy.
And the measure comes in an era
public-employee bashing, Shidaker
said.
“There’s no reason anybody in
America who’s working shouldn’t
have a health and retirement benefit,”
Shidaker said. “But because public
employees have those
benefits, they’re being
blamed for what’s
happening to budg-
ets.”
Shidaker also
serves on the 10-
member Oregon Edu-
cators Benefit Board,
R ICK
S HIDAKER and in July was
elected chair by fel-
low board members.
OEBB, formed in
2008, purchases
health insurance on
behalf of 170,000
people — school em-
ployees and their de-
pendents. Shidaker
was appointed as one
S TEVEN
of
the board’s union
A RAUJO
representatives by
then-governor Ted Kulongoski, and
was reappointed by John Kitzhaber.
Shidaker’s predecessor at OSEA is
retiring after 12 years at the helm.
Araujo, 59, said he’s moving on in or-
der to bring new blood into the organi-
zation. He’ll be relocating to Maricopa
County, outside Phoenix, Arizona, and
plans to get involved with local labor
and immigrants rights groups.
Araujo, who is Latino, grew up in
the Los Angeles area. He trained at the
Rio Hondo Police Academy. In 1982,
as a school police officer at El Rancho
Unified School District in Pico Rivera,
California, he got involved with the
California School Employees Associ-
ation. He rose through the union ranks,
winning election as chief steward, state
board member, first vice president, and
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
state president. He was then hired by
the union as a field representative.
Araujo applied for a job as OSEA’s
executive director in 1995 and again in
1998, and didn’t get the position, but
OSEA hired him as director of field
operations in 1998. In 2001, his third
time seeking the job, he was hired as
OSEA executive director.
Araujo says when he took the job,
OSEA was a stand-alone organization
with a self-image more along the lines
of an association than a union. It’s been
very satisfying to watch OSEA grow
into a true labor union, Araujo said, es-
pecially as it affiliated with the Ameri-
can Federation of Teachers and took a
seat at the table with other unions in
the state AFL-CIO.
“Our members are some of the low-
est paid, least respected workers in the
state,” Araujo said. “It has been great
to watch them come to understand they
have value, that they’re career employ-
ees; they’re not just a custodian, not
just a school bus driver.”
To find Araujo’s replacement,
OSEA hired a consultant and con-
ducted a nationwide search. A hiring
committee interviewed finalists from
around the country, but in the end rec-
ommended Shidaker, a 22-year em-
ployee of OSEA, to the union execu-
tive board.
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