THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Today's News

Friday, October 30, 1998

Part-Time Professors in Washington State Assert Right to Pension Benefits

By DENISE K. MAGNER

Two adjunct faculty members at community colleges in Washington State filed a claim for damages on Wednesday, alleging that they and other part-time instructors had illegally been denied retirement benefits.

Eva Mader and Dana Rush have both been long-time instructors in the state's community colleges. According to their complaint, state law says that employees who teach more than 50 per cent of a full-time load are entitled to retirement benefits. However, the claim says that the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges has wrongly interpreted the law, maintaining that part-timers had to teach more than 80 per cent of a full-time load for two consecutive quarters to be eligible for retirement benefits.

"We've come up with what we think is a blatant violation of the regulations and statutes governing retirement benefits for community-college faculty," said Stephen K. Strong, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. He said the case could affect hundreds of instructors throughout the state and amount to millions of dollars in damages.

The claim was filed with Washington's risk-management division, the first step that plaintiffs must take before suing the state. If the state fails to respond within 60 days, the plaintiffs plan to file a class action.

Ms. Mader teaches German at North Seattle Community College, and Mr. Rush teaches astronomy at Green River Community College. The instructors are seeking compensation, retroactively, for the denial of retirement benefits.

"Eva has been working two-thirds of a full-time load for over 20 years," Mr. Strong said. "If she had been enrolled all along in the retirement plan, it would have involved both employee and employer contributions. We're saying the state is responsible for the entire amount of the loss. It's too late to ask her to pay her share when she could have paid it all along."

The case comes on the heels of a separate class action filed against Washington's community colleges by another group of part-time instructors, who are seeking damages for what they say are years of unpaid wages and overtime.

Officials of the state board, which oversees Washington's 32 two-year colleges, could not be reached for comment. John Boesenberg, director of human resources for the state board, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the board had already planned to ask the Legislature for $1.9-million to extend retirement benefits to instructors who worked at least 50 per cent of a full-time load.

The board interprets the state law governing those benefits differently from the plaintiffs. The board maintains that an instructor must spend at least 70 hours a month teaching in the classroom to meet the standard of working 50 per cent of a full-time load, and be eligible for retirement benefits. The plaintiffs maintain that the board has misinterpreted the law, and that the 70 hours need not be in the classroom, but can also include hours spent preparing for class and grading papers.