If your business faces industrial action
Strike pay and working records
You can ask your employees if they’re planning to strike, so that you can tell what effect the strike will have - but they do not have to tell you their plans.
Deducting pay
You do not have to pay employees who are on strike.
If workers take action short of a strike, and refuse to carry out part of their contractual work, this is called ‘partial performance’. If you refuse to accept partial performance, you must tell employees that:
- they should only attend work if they fulfil their contractual duties
- if they do not fulfil the terms of their employment contract, you do not have to pay them
If you do accept partial performance, you must still pay employees for any work that they have done.
How much pay to deduct during a strike
You should only deduct the amount that the employee would have earned during the strike. How you work this out may depend on how they are paid (for example, hourly, weekly or monthly) and on the terms of their employment contract.
You cannot deduct an employee’s pay if they were not supposed to be working on the day of the strike.
Effect on continuous employment and length of service
If employees return to work after the strike, their continuous employment is not affected - they continue to be employed by you. This means that the terms and conditions of their employment contracts still apply during and after the strike.
However, days when they were on strike do not count towards their total length of service - this may be important for working out things like statutory redundancy pay or pensions.