Clarification of the Part-Time Faculty Union Lawsuit

The Wisconsin State Journal has published a story relating recent events that occurred in a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the Part-Time Faculty Union. We want to clarify some details for those of you who saw today’s headline “Judge Curbs MATC Overtime”. That headline could be misleading. 

On Wednesday the College brought a motion before Judge Juan Colas to defer the lawsuit brought by the Part-Time Faculty Union to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC). The Court agreed that the lawsuit should be deferred to the WERC because that is the state agency with the expertise to deal with the complex issues involved.

The Full-Time Faculty Union also had moved to become a party to this lawsuit. The Part-Time Faculty Union opposed the request of the Full-Time Faculty Union to intervene in the proceeding. This request will be addressed by Judge Colas on Wednesday, November. 3.

The judge decided to retain the authority to hear a motion for a temporary injunction filed by the Part-Time Faculty Union. This motion was already scheduled for November 17. That motion seeks to temporarily bar the College from assigning any new overloads to full-time faculty pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement between the College and the Full-Time Faculty Union.

The judge decided that until that motion is heard, the College should not assign overload to full-time faculty. This order is intended to preserve the status of the assignment process as it stood Wednesday. While the order does stop the process of finalizing faculty assignments for 21 days, it is not a determination on any aspect of the pending lawsuit. It does not, as the State Journal indicated, “curb MATC overtime”. Nor does it invalidate any provisions of any collective bargaining agreement between the College and its unions.

Scheduling and assignment of courses made prior to Wednesday’s order are not affected by the order. Planning for assignment of faculty can and should continue across the College.

The unfortunate result of this delay is that some students in some program areas may not know who is teaching the courses they want to enroll in. Additionally, some full-time faculty who requested overloads that are not yet assigned and probationary part-time faculty without assignments will not know which courses they will teach until the Part-Time Faculty Union’s motion is finally decided. We expect that decision on November 17.

Terry Webb
Vice President for Learner Success