Building power for Antioch faculty nationwide – Stay up to date on bargaining, membership meetings, contract resources, and ways to get involved in our union!
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💫 Bargaining Updates
Oct 6 update: Take action for the future of Antioch
Greetings Antioch Faculty Union colleagues,
We hope the first few weeks of the Fall term have been kind to you and that you’re finding moments for rest and connection! We have a number of updates today from our General Membership Meeting (10/5), including bargaining session updates, our current action plan as a Union, and a call to join the CAT team as we mobilize to secure our contracts.
Bargaining Session Team Updates
Antioch management needs to know that it isn’t just the bargaining team saying we need a contract that works for faculty, they need to hear from you!
The bargaining team met with management on Oct 5th and continues to discuss the issues with workload agreements, one of the main concerns of our members.
The next bargaining session is on October 15th and that is why taking action right now is critical to moving management at the table.
Email Campaign to President Varlotta
The next escalation step in our action plan to secure a fair contract is an email campaign, urging President Varlotta to stand with us in preserving our workload and creating fair compensation, and encouraging her team to consider faculty proposals and move forward in agreement. This is a crucial step in our process – we will collectively communicate the urgency of the bargaining session so that we can partner in good faith against the actions taken by CCG, as well as support confidence in Lori Varlotta as the standing AU president.
TAKE ACTION NOW! https://act.seiu.org/a/antioch-bargaining
The email campaign is not a one-stop shop. Using the link above, we ask that every single faculty member (e.g., core, affiliate, adjunct) complete the form every day from each of our professional accounts for the next 10 days, until the next bargaining session (held on October 15th) or until we receive an answer. This collective message of solidarity, we hope, will both apply pressure through visibility and uplift the voices of the BAT team for what we’ve been asking for for months. Our message is simple: Stand with us to secure faculty contracts, so we can stand with you in the broader fight for institutional autonomy.
The CAT team will be in touch with the next steps of the campaign plan for equitable contracts beyond this effort. Please send the link to your colleagues, AU friends, and anyone in your direct reach at Antioch so we can flood President Varlotta’s email with our call!
Join the Contract Action Team (CAT)Everyone has a voice and place in our union, and now is the time to step up!
Open Contract Action Team Meeting:
Thursday, Oct 8th
10am PT/1pm ET
Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83669442090
Meeting ID: 836 6944 2090
Unions live at the intersection of collective responsibility and collective action. We are most successful when we work together towards a united cause. This means we need more faces on the screen in union meetings, more voices willing to speak up, more fingers ready to text our peers to spread the news, updates, and next steps. The great news is that the more of us that step up, the fewer actions any individual needs to take. Most of the time, the effort is as small as a Zoom background or signing a petition.
The Contract Action Team (CAT) is at the heart of these tasks. We are your fellow faculty navigating the same milieu and working together to coordinate our work as a collective.
At the meeting we will orient you to the work and give you tools to reach out to your coworkers to get more members engaged.
Sept 21 update:
Hello SEIU 925 Union Members at Antioch University,
Your Faculty Union Bargaining Action Team (BAT) has met with Antioch University administration for the twelfth time. That’s right, 12 meetings, already.
Your BAT put across the bargaining table our Compensation counter-proposal to administration’s response to our initial proposal. While we made adjustments in response to Antioch’s fiscal realities and as part of our desire to help build a sustainable future, we held firm in asking for:
- Across-the-board increases
- Longevity raises
- State minimum rates for adjunct work (yes, even in California!)
- Retroactive adjustments from July 1, 2026
Your voice is needed in upcoming special membership meetings Sept. 1 and 3 to shape a creative brainstorming session between BAT and administration. On Sept. 15th, your BAT will collaborate with administration in an informal process to innovate new understandings and new ways to a sustainable future (instead of just “cutting” our way out of whatever jam AU is in currently).
Please be thinking about innovative ways of working, arranging schedules, contributing to enhancing revenue, in addition to providing excellent quality education, being more efficient without being less effective.
- How can we bring more light to the good work we do and to the amazing accomplishments of our students and alumni?
- How can we share our truly transformational learning community?
- What can we do to encourage more students to enroll and more social justice-minded folks to give and support our work?
Bring your ideas to our faculty union meetings in early September. Low-hanging fruit, big impact, off the wall. Fresh ideas, wild ideas, practical ideas. Missed opportunities we can take now; things we used to do that worked but don’t anymore; and things that have never been tried but might make a difference now. Let’s make Antioch a leader in innovative higher education again.
In Solidarity,
Antioch Faculty Union BAT and CAT
💫 Sign the Affiliate Faculty Grievance petition
💫 Membership Meetings
Member meetings happen the first Monday of every month.
Next Union Member Meeting:
- 📅 Date: Monday, Nov. 2
- 🕧 Time: 12:30p.m. PT / 3:30 p.m ET
Zoom registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/M-Ly2R9YSyemcrwwoZlTTw
💫 Join Our Union!
💫 Member Resource Center
Have questions? The Member Resource Center can help!
Call 1-877-734-867
8:00 am to 5:00 pm PST, Monday-Friday
💫 Current Contract / Collective Bargaining Agreement (2023-2026)
Additional Bargaining Resources: