Minimum Wage Lawsuit
Adjunct Professors Secure Court Ruling that Long Beach City College District Must Pay for Hours of Unpaid Work
Long Beach –In late February, hundreds of Long Beach part-time community college educators won a court ruling in a class action lawsuit against Long Beach City College District (LBCCD). In its ruling, the Superior Court judge determined that the District is violating California minimum wage laws by failing to compensate part-time faculty members for teaching-related work that they perform outside their scheduled classroom hours. This practice leaves many hours of lecture and lab preparation, syllabus design, grading, and administrative tasks unpaid for instructors who are already paid far less than their full-time counterparts. February’s precedent-setting ruling declares that all part-time community college faculty paid less than $5,720 per month in 2025 are not exempt from minimum wage laws and must therefore be compensated for all of their working time.
The class action lawsuit was organized by the California Teachers Association (CTA) in 2022 and filed on behalf of a class of all adjunct faculty at LBCCD. Two long-time LBCCD art history professors and Certificated Hourly Instructors (CHI) union members, Karen Roberts and Seija Rohkea, serve as class representatives in the lawsuit.
Roberts emphasized that the legal process has been “a collective effort—nobody can be out here by themselves doing this.” She continued, “this is all our victory.”
Roberts and Rohkea stepped up to represent their fellow part-time faculty members despite their vulnerable status as temporary employees. “We were so sure this was the right thing to do,” Roberts said. “But we were terrified at the same time—it felt like we were sticking our necks out, and we’re just a couple of at-will employees.”
In California, part-time faculty members teach up to 75 percent of all classes in some college districts. They must hold the same qualifications (PhDs and Master’s degrees) as their full-time colleagues and often incur high student debt for their advanced degrees. To make ends meet, most part-time professors teach classes at multiple colleges and universities, accumulating teaching loads higher than a full-time assignment at one school, while earning far less pay than full-time faculty members. At LBCCD and other community colleges in California, part-time faculty members are paid only for their scheduled classroom time, which can result in compensation for as little as three hours of work time per week, regardless of how much time faculty members spend in addition to their scheduled classroom time on work related to their assigned classes.
The Long Beach ruling applies to any adjunct faculty member who worked in an LBCCD part-time assignment at any time during the three years prior to the 2022 filing of the lawsuit through the date of final judgment in the case. Now that the court has declared that the District is liable for violating minimum wage law, the case will move to a new phase to determine the amount of the district’s backpay liability.
The court’s ruling also sets a precedent for part-time faculty members in other California community college districts to bring their own cases to light. “It is estimated that there are around 40,000 adjuncts in California—that really brings it home that this is going to be a big win—it’s going to have a big effect,” Roberts said.
