pay freeze

plural pay freezes

1. A period in which no wage or salary increases occur, when wages and salaries are frozen.

   1 more example

   Against a backdrop of economic devastation wreaked by COVID-19, from which the railway has been almost totally insulated by massive sums of public money, the RMT rail union is now calling for industrial action as a pay freeze beckons. [...] While the RMT and ScotRail bash heads over the pay freeze, RMT guards based at Glasgow Central are already walking out, with strikes planned [...] in a dispute over "abuse of disciplinary procedures".

   2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 62