Back-pay for at least 300 part-time faculty will be compensated by MATC.
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.
October 1, 2025
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - In a stunning reversal, more than 300 part-time instructors at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) will receive long-withheld back-pay after the college's Human Resources (HR) department quietly reduced hourly wages without notifying affected employees this past Summer of 2025.
The bombshell was confirmed in an official Local AFT 212 union newsletter, which informed faculty that the college has admitted to underpaying hundreds of instructors and will soon issue compensation for the difference.
Union Victory: Back-Pay Coming After Hidden Wage Cuts
According to the newsletter, MATC's administration agreed to repay all affected part-time faculty who taught during the Summer 2025 term under the college's new Progression and Pay system. Many of these instructors, which some were newly hired told their union leadership that they were never told by HR that their hourly rates would be slashed.
Local 212 confirmed:
"The College will be paying back pay to make up for the difference in the summer hourly pay rate versus spring rates,"
the union wrote.
"The administration has committed to eliminating the summer pay reduction entirely by Summer 2026," according to the union.
But there's a catch: instructors still under the older "legacy" system will continue facing summer pay cuts—estimated between 7.23% and 7.43%, a policy Local 212 has long called discriminatory.
Inside the HR Controversy:
The pay issue exploded in June 2025 when the union demanded an independent investigation into Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Laquitha "Elle" Bonds-Jones, who allegedly altered official documents in order to justify the pay reductions without approval from MATC President Dr. Anthony Cruz or the Board of Trustees.
Union leaders claim that after faculty discovered the discrepancies and began filing complaints, HR staff restricted access to internal policy documents and locked key files on the college's internal myMATC portal.
Local 212 President Lisa Conley accused HR of obstructing transparency:
"Human Resources has taken down access to compensation policy documents and removed document histories,"
"This matter affects no fewer than 300 part-time faculty. The department cannot investigate allegations of its own misconduct," Conley wrote.
Escalation at the Top:
At a tense September 15, 2025 meeting between Dr. Cruz, Bonds-Jones, and union leaders, Bonds-Jones allegedly tried to shift blame to the union's Vice President for Part-Time Faculty, claiming she was responsible for document alterations.
Union officials denounced the accusation as "baseless deflection," pointing to evidence they say proves the modifications originated within the HR department during May and June 2025.
Demand for Accountability:
Local 212 continues to press for a third-party forensic investigation, calling for all HR records, electronic logs, and archived documents to be secured and preserved to prevent further tampering.
The union's message is clear:
"MATC's administration owes its part-time faculty transparency, respect, and restitution," said Conley. "This back-pay is only the beginning."
The Bottom Line:
The scandal exposes serious cracks in MATC's payroll oversight and raises new questions about accountability, ethics, and leadership within one of Wisconsin's largest public technical colleges in Milwaukee.
For hundreds of part-time instructors, the long-awaited back-pay is both a financial victory and a warning, that vigilance and collective action through Local AFT Union 212 remain essential to protecting union workers from institutional abuse.
So far, Dr. Cruz nor the MATC Board of Trustees have not announced publicly, if they will actually authorize a third party internal investigation into the alleged elicit acts by the HR administration. The HR can not investigate itself, according to the MATC union.
Also, Dr. Cruz and the Board have continously failed to address other internal issues, hostile work environment, harassment, retaliation against employees who have complained about the administration practices of discrimination and retribution plaguing MATC, since Dr. Cruz was hired.
Cruz has come under fire for eliminating the Multicultural Affairs Office and firing for student services specialists in August, by students, faculty, employees and members from four ethnic communities involving the Hispanic/Latino, Asian, Black and Native-Americans who have lost confidence in Dr. Cruz, despite his Investiture by the Board in September.
Another example of retaliation and discrimination practices at MATC, Jennifer Wayd who applied over 60 times for different job positions in her 13 years at MATC with no success, and in 2025 was finally given a full-time Librarian position, but was then fired, and her last day on the job was September 30th.
In an email sent to Dr. Cruz on September 30th by Carlos Aranda, a MATC Counselor, he wrote, Today marks Jennifer Wayd's final day at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Jennifer was previously offered a full-time LTE Librarian position, which has now concluded. Regrettably, rather than being reinstated to her former role, the Human Resources department chose to proceed with her termination.
Jennifer Wayd who has worked at MATC for 13 years, told the Board in December 2024 that she has applied at least 60 times for promotional opportunities at MATC during her career at the technical college, but was unsuccessful in getting promoted claiming ongoing discrimination employment practices at MATC. (Video of the December 17, 2024 during Board of Trustees meeting, Wayd testimony at minute 17:20 at link:
https://youtu.be/ed93-NODo8M)
Wayd in an email wrote, The unhealthy culture at Milwaukee Area Technical College is significantly affecting the mental health and well-being of many employees. It raises an important question: who is being held accountable for addressing this issue?
Lastly, in the October 2024 Board of Trustees public meeting comment session, HNNUSA learned that the MATC HR had hired a non-bilingual instructor to teach a bilingual Economics course at MATC, which the course was advertised as a bilingual Spanish class. It was also learned that non-bilingual instructors were also assigned to teach two other courses as well, which included Sociology and Psychology that were advertised as bilingual courses that actually setup the students for failure in the bilingual courses. (October 2024 video testimony:
https://youtu.be/Lm_ImpZGXn4)
