Two Long Beach City College (LBCC) educators have filed a class-action lawsuit charging LBCC with violating minimum wage laws with the way it pays part-time faculty, in a case that is likely to shine a light on the lack of pay parity for part-time instructors at California’s community colleges.

Some community colleges unlawfully treat part-time adjunct instructors as exempt from minimum wage laws. Part-time faculty do not earn enough money to be exempt from California’s minimum wage requirements. These colleges pay part-time instructors an hourly rate only for each hour teaching in the classroom, in front of students, despite requiring these instructors to work many hours performing teaching-related work outside of the classroom.

“I’m not paid for the prep that each course requires,” said Karen Roberts, a longtime part-time art history instructor at LBCC and Community College Association (CCA) member who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit along with Seija Rohkea, also a CCA member. “Asking us to work for free is wrong, unethical and shows a lack of care for employees.”

Discussed at a press conference today, the lawsuit has the potential to benefit more than 650 current part-time faculty at LBCC as well as former faculty. The practice of paying part-time faculty only for hours spent in the classroom is widespread throughout many of California’s community colleges, despite these colleges expecting and evaluating the job performance of these instructors based on...

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