About

• A sickout essentially involves organising a large number of workers with grievances and getting them to take coordinated leaves on the pretext of being unwell, usually at the eleventh hour, giving the management hardly any time to respond effectively and put mitigation measures in place.
• Traditional strikes and sickouts are similar, as they involve employees refusing to work to force the management to address their grievances and consider their demands. 

Difference

Problems Associated with Sickouts

• It is also a lot more difficult for the management to take punitive action against sickouts, mainly because while it is a protest, it is in the garb of illness. 
• Unlike a formal strike in which workers openly refuse to work and they and their leaders can easily be identified, proving that all workers who called in sick did so with malicious intent and without reasonable cause can be quite complicated from a legal perspective.
• Identifying leaders of the protest or the forces behind the agitation can be challenging as sickouts are often organised informally, not by a structured and recognised union.