The big unions have political clout. Strikers do not pay taxes so the local governments get pissed. If the strike goes on long enough strikers don’t pay bills so banks get pissed.
CEOs all think of these effects before they push negotiations to the point of a strike. They have to because they get phone calls from politicians trying to pressure them to fold.
I am sure the CEO of GM back in the 80s got such calls we all know that the GM CEO to day will be getting an Obama call about this.
The flip side is, GM knew its competitor (Ford and Chrysler, for the most part) would get the same UAW bump every two or three years so there was little incentive to fight back. The UAW knew this, too.
Pity they ignored Honda, Toyota, etc that moved in and cleaned their clocks.
You missed one very important point, Obama is the CEO of GM and he is the head of the UAW operations for GM at the same time. So is that funny picture of him holding the wrong end of the phone to his ear a perfect example that he cannot even listen to himself?