Madison College President Asks Faculty Union to Vote on Contract

Wisconsin State Journal
By DEBORAH ZIFF dziff[at] madison [dot] com 608-252-6234 | Posted: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:30 a.m.

The president of Madison Area Technical College sent a letter to part-time faculty Monday asking them to vote on a contract agreement with the college, which is now a year overdue.

Her letter is in response to an announcement by the MATC Part-Time Teachers Union leadership earlier this month that it was delaying ratification of a tentative agreement with the college because of concerns about the overtime policy for full-time professors.

Part-time teachers union president Mike Kent is concerned that the policy will allow full-time faculty to take all the course assignments, bumping part-time teachers from the payroll.

In a letter to the faculty, President Bettsey Barhorst charged that Kent is breaking a commitment to the college by not bringing the agreement to the union for a vote by the end of May.

"The failure to present and recommend a tentative agreement that has been reached in good faith collective bargaining, especially when the parties clearly have made that commitment to one another, is a refusal to bargain, and a violation of Wisconsin law," Barhorst wrote.