After discovering a growing gap between the pay of part-time and full-time instructors at Madison Area Technical College, the college’s Part-time Teachers’ Union began bargaining to address the salary discrepancy.

“We looked at the trends for the part-timers at MATC and the trends for the full-timers at MATC, and what we found is that over at least the past 10 years, the gap in compensation is getting wider and wider on a per-course basis,” said Mike Kent, president of the MATC Part-time Teachers’ Union.

According to a statement from the union, the average compensation per three-credit course for a part-time instructor in 2009 is $2,582, while full-time instructors receive an average of $13,397 compensation for the same course.

However, Labor Attorney for the MATC District Board Jon Anderson said union cal-culations included benefits, which part-time employees do not receive. He added benefits and increased responsibilities of full-time staff are major differences between the two groups.

Part-time Teacher’s Union Vice President Bob Curry, however, disagrees.

“You go to school, earn your degrees, bring valuable real-world experience into the classroom, keep up with your certification and you can make more money as a fry cook,” Curry said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.

The MATC District Board is offering part-time teachers a 2 percent cost of living raise over the next two years, which Anderson said “is a lot better than many people are getting” given current economic conditions.

“We have the same interest as the part-time faculty in many respects,” Anderson said. “We want to pay them competitively … and we think that we do.”

Kent, however, said the offer of 2 percent is significantly less than their offers to any other bargaining unit, including full-time instructors and the college administration itself. He added it would be irresponsible to commit to the union’s terms for the future without knowing the state of the economy.

The union proposed taking a pay-increase rate freeze for 18 months if they receive the same “dollar-for-dollar raise” as the full-time instructors in 2011, Curry said.

Anderson said though the proposed pay freeze would keep rates the same for 18 months, other factors — including staff getting higher degrees and staying at MATC longer — would result in a raise of 0.25 to 1.75 percent for 77 percent of part-time teachers.

However, Curry feels otherwise.

“No matter what happens with this particular settlement, this will not go away until they take us seriously, acknowledge the obvious inequity and meet us with some ideas,” Curry said.

Kent said some sort of change will have to be made.

“Nobody can really justify the system continuing the way it is,” Kent said. “The college has responded to us by saying they’re not really interested in doing anything to address the pay gap. It just comes down to disagreements over how we’re going to deal with it.”