Not 100% sure if you’ve understood, they should indeed do that, and it’s part of the “system” here. They should however also do that in solidarity with their less-exposed, more vulnerable coworkers, and not have a multitude of unions.
They can’t be forced to work if they don’t want to, every employee must decide if the wages are enough for them. All a strike is, is the workers together saying they won’t work for the current wage any more, but if management will agree they’ll be happy to come back. It’s your whole workforce quitting on you but you have a chance they’ll come back. It would be completely fine for any one person to behave this way, but they would have no power to achieve the change they want. One person is easily replaced. But if the workers happen to all ask at the same time, then the owners are much more likely to think paying the wage is easier than replacing every employee.
When it boils down to it, it’s not a complicated idea and it seems to me that management tries to make it sound complicated and dodgy. If you wanted to sum it up in a sentence it’d be “Boss, we’ve talked it over and we’re not going to work unless you pay us enough for the work we do”. The boss only makes money if the workers are working at all, he can’t run the whole factory himself, so if he’d like to continue this enviable position of gaining capital without creating capital, he may want to consider a negotiation.
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