After four years of battling in court, part-time faculty members reached an $18 million settlement with the Long Beach Community College District earlier this year over what they called a failure to compensate them for work done outside the classroom. They spend hours preparing for lectures, grading student work and communicating with students through the week, they said, but are only paid for “classroom hours.”
Now, part-time faculty across the California Community College system are following in their footsteps. At present, there are at least five other active lawsuits against the California Community Colleges Board of Governors or specific community college districts over the same issue. Together, these lawsuits name about a third of the system’s 73 districts.
According to Dan Galpern, one of the attorneys representing part-time faculty members, more lawsuits are likely on their way. He said there were several other districts that he believed were “also violating the law” and the team of attorneys working on these cases were “considering undertaking enforcement actions.”…