Biographical Note
CalArts United was formed by CalArts employees with the objective to establish collective bargaining with the CalArts administration. They are joining the tens of thousands of academic workers at UC, USC, Caltech, and other institutions of higher education across the U.S. seeking to secure a better future through collective bargaining as part of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW). UAW is a growing movement of faculty and staff at private institutions like Harvard, Columbia, NYU, NYFA, Barnard, and ArtCenter who have organized strong unions and negotiated meaningful improvements to salary, benefits, and working conditions.

Without collective bargaining, CalArts employees have faced stagnant salaries, increasing workloads, convoluted and ineffective benefits, threats to job security, and a lack of transparency in administrative policies and decision making. Securing the terms of their compensation, benefits and working conditions through a collective bargaining agreement will prevent CalArts from making changes that impact their work experience and quality of life without their consent. CalArts employees, forming a union to improve their working conditions and make the Institute a more equitable and accessible center for teaching, learning and creativity.

Timeline
2016 faculty at CalArts organized and filed for a union election with the support of SEIU 721. However, faculty decided to withdraw their petition and ultimately never had a union vote.
March 5, March 6, 2025 election votes. More than 450 of the 602 full-time and part-time faculty and staff at the institute are in support of forming the union.
December 3, 2025 64 employees signed and members delivered a letter to President Ravi S. Rajan.
March 27 2025 ballot count was a majority "yes". 75% colleagues in support to establish CU-UAW as the official union.

Scope and Content
This is a growing collection so materials are being added in real time.
Currently the collection consists of correspondence between the union, a letter to the president, voting posters, and photographs from delivering the letter.

[vote yes to unionize posters]

image zoom

image zoom

image zoom