On May 27, 2026, CalArts and CU-UAW met for a consolidated bargaining session on economic proposals. CalArts returned counters for the following proposals: (1) Healthcare Benefits, (2) Regular and Technical Faculty Compensation, (3) Special Faculty Compensation, (4) Staff Compensation, (5) Tuition and Loan Assistance, (6) Vacation, and (7) the package on Parking and Transit and Work Travel.
On Healthcare Benefits, CalArts explained that it had its broker solicit healthcare benefit bids from the captive market. Healthcare captives pool employers under a single plan to enable more competitive bidding than an employer would get as a single entity. The broker solicited bids from 9 captives, including edHealth, of which 7 declined to bid based on CalArts utilization data and 2 offered bids at costs higher than CalArts’ current plan. Accordingly, CalArts offered to maintain its current plan coverage contributions between employee and employer and to maintain other employee insurance benefits during the term of the collective bargaining agreement. Additionally, CalArts countered with providing $10,000 per calendar year during the contract term for an Emergency Healthcare Fund for employees in Tier 1 on the Imagine 360 1,000 Plan to use for unexpected healthcare costs, reimbursable up to $500 for an individual and up to $1,000 for an individual with dependents.
CalArts also countered with a 1.2% across-the-board increase for all faculty and staff in its initial counter for each year of the collective bargaining agreement, explaining that it hopes this number increases, but that further analysis on the total student enrollment and the expected operating budget is needed soon. (The 1.2% does include step or merit advancements of the FSAP for Regular and Technical Faculty. Generally, a Step advancement every 3 years, even without merit, leads to about a 4% increase, which is about another 1.4% every year.) The parties had extensive discussions on the operating budgets and expenses, explaining that CalArts needs to be financially prudent at this time, given the ongoing structural deficit and the Board’s prior significant special endowment draw.
On Tuition Benefits and Loan Assistance, CalArts countered that it will maintain its Tuition Remission Policy in place during the term of the forthcoming CBA and continue to fulfill its requirements under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program for which it is an eligible public service institution. In other words, employees who work at CalArts or other PSLF-eligible institutions can have their loans forgiven if they do so for 10 years and make the minimum payments under the program.
CalArts provided another counter on Parking and Transit, minus the public transit quarterly commuter incentive, but reiterated that if CU-UAW provides CalArts with any data that a good number of employees would utilize public transit, it is willing to further consider this proposal. To date, CU-UAW has not provided any such polling data. CalArts also provided its counter on Work Travel.
For the Vacation article for Staff, CalArts countered largely with proposing to keep in place during the term of the CBA its current vacation accruals in the Staff Handbook, explaining that CalArts has amongst the most generous paid time off benefits. At present, staff will receive 11 paid holidays, 6 days of winter break (not counting the two holidays in that period), and at least 15 days of vacation, which adds up to at least 30 days of paid time off, and with accruals could go as high as about 39 days or 47 days. This also does not account for the summer AWS. CU-UAW provided another counter to Vacation, moving closer to agreement of the parties on this article.