Sample Annual base salary - $84,000 or $7,000 per month (not including OT)
Month 1 strike lost wages - $7,000 (not including OT)
7.5% raise in offer - $6,300
Financially, already in the hole if contract is signed in the first month, which it won't be. Can't make it up with future OT because OT exists now. It's just lost wages at a rate of at least $7K per month plus cost of whatever insurance you can find in the Obamacare market. There's some small token of strike pay, welfare/unemployment for a small percentage of people, and a big risk of complete job loss.
Possible upside: hoping public opinion or the government steps in to apply enough pressure to save the day and secure the same contract that is already on the table. Of course by then it will be well after many months of lost wages. If the requests were deemed reasonable by most unbiased parties, federal mediation would have been taken without question. Since they would not be deemed reasonable, mediation was rejected. A very telling sign in the court of public opinion. I have heard the statement that the union was hosed by mediation last time. Maybe this same issue applies...if the requests weren't reasonable, they wouldn't be supported by a mediator.
I see no possible upside of a long strike for anyone involved. How many months of lost wages makes sense before it's a better deal to sign the contract and have income while interviewing for other jobs in the market? I have spoken to people that say it took them 5 years to recover financially from a strike. That just seems ludicrous to me. No one cares about the individual family financial situation but those in the family. EWA folks will be in misery for up to a couple of more months and then it's just a rough patch in a career rewarded by an inflated bank account. The long term impact of people going without income for an extended period of time is significant. This is in the hands of the executives on both sides and it's just unfortunate that so many individual families are caught in the middle like pawns on a chess board.