Strike pay

Strike pay is a payment made by a trade union to workers who are on strike to help in meeting their basic needs while on strike, often out of a special reserve known as a strike fund. Union workers reason that the availability of strike pay increases their leverage at the bargaining table and actually decreases the probability of a strike, since the employers are aware that their employees have this financial resource available to them if they choose to strike. When workers strike, they can also subsist using pre-strike income and savings.

It has also been used in Australian law to mean payments by employers to compensate lost earnings by employees during industrial action. Strike pay, under the usual meaning above, "is relatively uncommon in both Australia and New Zealand" according to Velden et al.