Many Madison Area Technical College students will face selecting classes for the spring semester without knowing who their professors will be after MATC’s administration ceased assigning professors to classes in response to a court order.

At a hearing last Wednesday, Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas issued a temporary restraining order against MATC, preventing full-time faculty from being assigned overtime for next semester.

“The judge issued a temporary order that maintains the status quo on full-time faculty overload assignments,” said MATC’s Vice President for Learner Success Terry Webb in an e-mail to The Badger Herald

The restraining order issued by the court followed a lawsuit filed by MATC’s Part-Time Teacher’s Union, alleging unfair labor practices at MATC.

Part-Time Teacher’s Union Vice President Bob Curry said the college has been allowing full-time professors to overload their course schedules, taking on overtime up to 40 percent of their workload, before probationary and other part-time professors receive class assignments.

As a response to the court order, MATC’s administration has temporarily stopped assigning faculty to classes without professor assignments, Webb said.

Curry said he did not understand why the college has ceased all faculty assignments when the court order only prevented the administration from assigning overtime to full-time faculty.

Curry added the order does not prevent the college from assigning remaining courses to part-time faculty.

“MATC exploits part-timers and this is an act of union busting,” Curry said.

Webb said the professor assignments that have already been made will not be affected by MATC’s actions.

However, about one-third of the classes offered at MATC will not have professors assigned to them before class registration opens on Nov. 4, Webb said.

“The bottom-line is that some students will have to register for classes without knowing who their professors will be,” Webb said.

Webb said some faculty assignments will not be made until a hearing held on Nov. 17.

At the hearing, Colas is expected to deliver his decision about the permanence of the order.

The case will then be moved to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, a body that rules of issues related to labor grievance disputes.

Curry said the process may be long, but the union will continue to fight the college on this issue.

“At some point, they are going to have to play nice in the sandbox because we are not going away,” Curry said.