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CAUT Policies
Policy Statement on Allocation of Strike Pay

The purpose of strike pay is to provide tax-free pay to members who are supporting job action and who are losing income as a result of this support. Decisions regarding strike pay should be oriented towards minimizing the hardship that academic staff association members face as they take job action. There is a diversity of practices among Canadian academic staff associations in the area of strike pay, and the purpose of this policy statement is to help associations develop and rethink their own policies without the need to “reinvent the wheel.” In particular, allocating strike pay has become more challenging as academic staff associations incorporate broader categories of academic staff, such as contract employees, many of whom may live at a distance and work in a technologically-mediated fashion.

Academic staff associations should endeavour to have adequate resources in a local defence fund to cover the association’s costs during job action. An adequate fund will also carry weight at the bargaining table. For associations that are members of the CAUT Defence Fund, these expenses include strike pay in the first three days before Defence Fund support begins. Also, the local association will bear costs during the strike, and may also want to exceed Defence Fund daily payments for members as well as provide interest-free loans and a final tax-free payment at the end of the strike. (To ensure that there are always adequate resources in the defence fund, it is prudent for the association to have a constitutional mechanism for an automatic, temporary dues increase to rebuild the local defence fund when it is exhausted or falls below a certain level.)  

Total strike pay will be determined by the member’s participation in the strike, established by the academic staff association Executive. This strike pay will begin on the first day of job action, regardless of whether the association is a member of the CAUT Defence Fund.

Support for the strike will take the form of refusing to fulfill professional duties for the Employer, and participating in picketing or other daily duties as defined and assigned by the academic staff association. Members who normally work daytime hours are expected to support the strike with daily service during week days, but may be excused on occasion, at the discretion of the academic staff association, for medical, accommodation-related or family reasons. Associations should have a policy detailing the criteria for being excused.

All members, regular academic staff and contract academic staff, are eligible for full strike pay. Strike pay for all members through the week will be provided according to the scheduled service that they provide to the academic staff association during job action. All members, regular academic staff and contract academic staff, are eligible for full strike pay. Members can be assigned non-picketing duties, such as leafleting, media monitoring, managing phone and email trees, organizing rallies and meetings, preparing and delivering food, or any other strike-related activities determined by the academic staff association.