How is this special? The whole point of a strike is to stop working as a risky bartering chip. Why would they expect to get paid whilst not working?
At best, there may a union fund reserved for paying workers to some degree during a strike. But that's always funded by the union. It's not the employer paying.
"Extraordinarily hostile" makes sense in no universe.
Sounds like these people were paid while striking, for a few weeks:
> Nearly 1,800 part-time faculty members at the New School, who have been on strike since November 16 for better pay and working conditions, remained out of work and on the picket lines on Wednesday even as the university said it would start withholding their pay [emphasis mine].
I wouldn't assume they were paying striking employees because they wanted to be doing so.
But: there are a lot of unions that don't seem to understand that starting a strike is starting a fight. Their only response to somebody fighting back is whining to the press. Which might work once, but in the medium-term is certain to lead to massive defeats for the labor movement.