San Diego

An association representing part-time faculty members in the San Diego Community College District called Monday for higher pay, job security and better working conditions for the 1,577 teachers who make up the vast majority of the teaching staff at the district’s three community colleges.

Francis Feeley, president of the Hourly Faculty Assn., also said part-time faculty members believe that they can be dismissed at the whim of administrators.

“Many of (the part-time faculty) are ‘freeway flyers,’ ” Feeley said. “They spend hours and hours each week flying around the freeway to those various campuses for that hourly wage.”

Acting Chancellor Allen Brooks, president of Mesa College, said that “there are built-in safeguards to prevent” arbitrary dismissals.

The Community College Assn., an affiliate of the California Teachers Assn., has been trying to solve many of the part-time teachers’ problems through the passage of bills in the state Legislature, said Community College Assn. President David Rubiales.

He said Feeley’s criticism of the union stems from part-time teachers’ frustration at the shortage of full-time teaching jobs.

Part-time faculty members, who outnumber the district’s full-time faculty 1,577 to 475, earn $19 to $24 an hour for the average six hours they spend teaching at a community college each week. Teachers with full-time contracts earn an average of $29,847 a year, according to association figures.