Why would it need to cover their salary? It’s a survival fund, it helps you survive until you get a job again, so rent or mortgage and food, and probably not much else. Thats considerably less than what they were happy to work to make, so the fund can stretch much further. Im sure they are also hopeful that it won’t be needed by each person for an entire year. It appears to have been set up by a union, so they are also probably only supporting union members this way, which is fair imho, and they have an interest in helping them find work as quickly as possible, but it also means this probably isn't the only emergency fund income source they have.