Long Beach City College was presented with a class action lawsuit co-sponsored by the California Teachers Association on April 4, representing two of the schools’ very own part-time professors.
Art history professors Karen Roberts and Seija Rohkea claim that the school’s pay contract for adjunct professors is in violation of California labor laws, since they are not paid minimum wage for the hours they are expected to put in outside of the classroom.
“We are not paid to meet with students, we are not paid to grade papers, we are not paid for any class prep, we are only paid for the time that we have in the classroom and we have tried to bargain office hours previously and it has been unsuccessful,” Roberts said, a part time professor who has taught for over twenty years.
“We surveyed the part time faculty a few years ago and we found that part time faculty that participated in the survey put anywhere between three to ten hours outside the classroom,” Roberts said.
“And on top of that, the pandemic has exacerbated that, we are trying to get compensation for all the work we did to get all our classes online which was a tremendous amount of training, they were only willing to pay me for three flex hours,” Rohkea said.
67 percent of Long Beach city colleges teaching staff is part time, this is 16 percent higher than the national average.
Hiring an abundance of adjunct professors is reflective of the schools efforts to maintain a tight budget but the professors are wondering where is the money from COVID-19 grants as well as the money given for the cost of living adjustment (cola) passed by Gov. Newsom last semester sitting?
“The money is there. The question is what are they doing with it, why are they hoarding it, why aren’t they paying adjunct in every capacity to do right by the students and to be there by the students,” Rohkea said.
LBCC has a reserve of money bigger than most city colleges, which is at about 30 percent.
“There is a problem where they are expecting part time faculty to work for free, we should be paid minimum wage for this additional work that we are doing,” Roberts said.
Part time professors do not get compensated for any hours they put in outside the classroom, but with a turn over rate of 1 in 3 per year, part time professors feel that they are at the mercy of the district and have to put in their all, not only because they care about their students but because teacher evaluations can control their fate at the college.
“We’ve really fallen into the category of gig workers and many of our students don’t even know that, so who is left out is the student and as adjuncts we know that our job security comes at the heels of student success so we have to put in that extra time for every single student that comes to us for help,” Rohkea said.
The average part-time professor makes less than $20,000 a year, and some even have to rely on government aid between semesters just to get by.
Some adjunct professors like Rohkea and Roberts have to work at multiple colleges to make ends meet.
Eileen Goldsmith is the representing lawyer for the professors brought on by the California Teacher’s Association who are standing with the two professors and are co-sponsors of assembly bill 1752, a union contract bill that would require part time professors to receive compensation at an amount that is more proportionate to what full time employees are paid.
“We are looking to change the practice of how adjunct professors are compensated and we would like to bring them closer to parity with full time professors,” Goldsmith said.
According to Goldsmith, a case like this could easily take a year or more until we see any changes in the teachers contracts.
Goldsmith says she is exploring similar cases across other districts, as well with other part time professors facing similar issues.
If the adjunct professors succeed, the district will have to compensate part time professors from 2019 and on.
There are currently 600 professors involved being accounted for and there could potentially be more from past professors who no longer work for the school.