Strikes were the workers’ main weapon against their employers. It was possible for union members to strike because all the members of the union paid a certain amount of money in every week, and this could then we used to pay the workers when they were on strikes. Employers hesitated before fighting a union which had plenty of money to keep a strike going for a long time. But even with the strike pay which they got for their union, strikers and their families suffered, so it was usually in the interests of both sides to try to settle disputes without strikes. Parliament encouraged this by making rules for arbitration between employers and workers when they had a dispute, and many strikes were avoided in this way.