On March 11, 2026, CU-UAW and CalArts met for a further session of consolidated bargaining. The parties reached a tentative agreement on Personnel Records. CU-UAW provided further edits to its proposal on Work Travel, amending it to work with CalArts’ updated Travel and Expense policy as of 2025, and Holidays. CalArts provided its further counterproposal on the Emergency Healthcare Fund CU-UAW proposed for this benefits plan year (April 1, 2026-March 31, 2027) and its counterproposal for temporary employees.
For CalArts’ counterproposal on the Emergency Healthcare Fund, on a summary level, CalArts counter-proposed offering a $10,000 fund for (a) Tier 1 employees on the Imagine360 1000 plan or (b) employees on the dental or vision plan, who incur unexpected medical, dental, or vision bills greater than $250. Eligible employees can get reimbursement up to $500 or $1,000 for themselves and their covered dependents on a first-come, first-served basis. More details will be provided on this offering should the parties come to an agreement.
Additionally, CalArts provided a further update that its broker is eliciting bids from healthcare captives (pooled cooperatives), like EdHealth, and that there should be an update on whether there were any bidders, etc. within a month.
The parties also discussed that they are close to completing Consolidated Bargaining for the time being and will be discussing scheduling and organizing bargaining for the separate units—(1) Regular and Technical Faculty, (2) Special Faculty, and (3) Staff—soon. Remaining proposed articles such as Union Access, Union Security, Management Rights, Complete Agreement, No Strike No Lockout, Policies and Procedures, Nondiscrimination, Health Benefits, Retirement, Parking & Transit, Duration, will be re-addressed at a later time (e.g., economic proposals will be addressed jointly and the union and management-related rights will likely be re-addressed with grievance and arbitration).