Local 212 Responds to Dr. Cole's Contract Renewal

September 27, 2006

TO: ALL LOCAL 212 MEMBERS

At least night’s MATC District Board meeting, Dr. Cole asked for and was granted a new three year contract that includes a 4% salary increase and at least an 8.5% increase in total compensation.

This comes at a time when his “offer” to MATC faculty and staff in contract bargaining is a 2% salary increase coupled with drastically cutting early retirement benefits, eliminating retiree health benefits, changing part-time faculty pay to an hourly rate and FREEZING it for three years!

Most hypocritical is that Dr. Cole’s new contract calls for him to get lifetime family health care benefits after his sixth year at MATC (next year). However, he proposes eliminating retiree health benefits for faculty and staff, who now get them after 15 years and pay 50% of the premium at age 65!

Clearly Dr. Cole has taken care of himself and his family. But just as clearly, he doesn’t think that you and your family are worth as much as his.

As if to highlight that it was trying to get away with something, the administration’s media release claimed that Dr. Cole was only getting a 2% salary increase:

The other 2% is referred to as an “annual retirement stipend,” increasing from $10,500 to $15,000. This is nothing more than spinmeister talk for a cash bonus. Dr. Cole, like all MATC employees, is in the state retirement pension system, and the college contributes more for him than anybody else because his salary is the highest.

So this additional “stipend” is actually taxable income, not retirement income, and he could spend it tomorrow.

The game is pretty obvious: by trying to hide half of this salary increase, the administration will then try to claim it’s offering us the same thing Dr. Cole got.

Who do they think they’re fooling, the taxpayers? At MATC, every day we teach our students the relationship between cause and effect. We’re not fooled by such a shell game.

But there are even more goodies for Dr. Cole. He received an increase in his “annual business expense stipend” from $2000 to $4000. He already gets a car allowance and has a huge budget for his expenses, so who knows what this goes for?

And wait, there’s more. He gets an additional week of vacation for a total of six weeks, as well as the perk of cashing out two weeks of that vacation if he claims he doesn’t use it. That’s another cash bonus of $8070 per year.

The entire package means he will now be earning $236,885, for an annual increase of 8.5%. And that does NOT include figuring all his other perks including car, health care and real pension payments.

What do you think: is it fair for the leader of a college to treat himself so much better than he treats his employees, the people who actually work with students every day?

Rest assured this will be brought up in bargaining and to MATC Board members.

We in Local 212 leadership know we can count on you when we ask you to respond. Stay tuned!

Michael Rosen, Local 212 President
Charlie Dee, Local 212 Executive Vice-President

Click on these links to see other articles on this topic:

Link to Sept 27, 2006 Journal Sentinel's Article:
MATC chief at top of technical college pay scale