What did they achieve?

‘Ratepayer’ writes:-

NOW THAT it seems to be over, or at least put on hold for a while, I wonder if the individual strikers among the municipal workers have had the time to wonder if they actually achieved anything by destroying electricity and water infrastructure.

I’m not talking about the leaders congratulating themselves, but of the individual worker with a family to support who surely if he has half a brain, must wonder was the destruction, and consequent inconvenience to the rest of us, and cost of repair, worthwhile?

I have no problem with the right of workers to strike. It has to be so, that a labourer can withdraw his labour, in order to pressurise the employer. But ultimately, if you think about it, the two sides must meet and agree on the matter in dispute. No strike lasts for ever, in the end the sides meet and agree.

Why then, cannot the two sides approach the subject in dispute in a mature and responsible manner at the start? Is a strike simply a way of gaining leverage for when the two sides do meet?

I don’t know who it was who said it, but he said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means”, something like that, and maybe striking by workers is the continuation of labour negotiation by other means.