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Glite Dictionary
strike pay

strike pay

1 6.7
Money a union gives members during a strike to help with living costs
  • noun
  • Jargon
translation icon : pago de huelga
  • Sandra, here's your strike pay.

Examples

  • The union provided strike pay to its members while they protested for better working conditions.

  • During the lengthy industrial action, workers relied heavily on strike pay to meet their daily expenses.

  • After weeks without work, many employees were grateful for the strike pay that helped them stay afloat.

Antonyms

nonpayment
3 4.1

Someone does not pay money they owe

Surface Forms

strike pay singular
strike pays plural

Morphology

strike + pay

The meaning 'money paid to workers during a strike' is directly and transparently derivable from combining 'strike' (an organized stoppage of work) with 'pay' (remuneration). This noun+noun composition follows a common, compositional pattern found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would very likely infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Strike pay comes from unions giving money to members when they stop work in a protest called a 'strike'. Think of strike as the reason and pay as the money, so 'strike pay' means 'money to help workers while they cannot earn money'.