The National Labor Relations Act permits employees to strike, subject to certain conditions, as well as subject to certain employment situations, such as those that are employed as police officers, or, in many cases, those that teach at public schools. The fact that employees can strike, subject to certain conditions, such as an unlawful purpose, or in violation of the terms of a labor contract, as well as similar restrictions, gives those that are employees the potential wherewithal to have some semblance of power when it comes to the negotiation with those that are their employer of record.
The main purpose of any strike is to change the current conditions, in regards to wages, work environment, safety, hours and the like to take into fair account the needs of those that are employed, and typically those that resort to a strike, are doing so, because their voices have effectively been ignored or silenced, and therefore for those that will not listen, an actual strike is initiated to get their attention.
Not too surprisingly, management is often times, though not always, aware that there may indeed be a strike in the works, and therefore because of that awareness, they are better setup in their response to such and will have taken into careful consideration what their countermoves will consist of. This signifies, that those so preparing to strike typically want to catch the management off guard, so that the management will not have had the time or the necessary resources, to build up an inventory, to engage with "scabs" to break the strike, or any of a multitude of management responses that will mitigate the damages to their bottom line and to their business, at large.
Further, some managements actually try to provoke their employees into striking, especially when their business outlook looks rather bleak, in the hopes of reducing their labor costs, by functionally shutting down their business for a period of time, with the master plan being to thereby come to the negotiating table of which by taking into account the now current business conditions, and in consideration of those that had been currently employed, but are now on strike, that those striking employees will actually have to give back hours, or benefits, or some percentage of jobs, or even wages, in order for that business to promise to continue as a going concern. Additionally, some companies have no interest in negotiating much of anything, but hope that employees will strike, of which, they will therefore subsequently change their infrastructure in a manner in which more machines and more automation, will thereby come into play; or they may even make a conscious decision to move to an entirely different location in a different city, which will functionally close that division down at that locale.
So though employees have a right to strike, employers often have a multitude of responses to this, and because of their power, wealth, and foresight are typically meaningfully prepared for a strike. In other words, strikes by employees are contemplated and enacted in the hopes that the issues in play are fairly resolved; whereas, management in many a case, rather than directly dealing with such, and ameliorating such through a fair negotiation, are all too often going to play exclusive homage to their bottom line, to thereby send the message that those that exercise their right to strike, have in effect, opened up Pandora's box.