Presumably the employer wants/needs a staff. If they didn't they'd have gone contractor-only a long time ago. The immediate incentive is that the staff they wa

Presumably the employer wants/needs a staff. If they didn't they'd have gone contractor-only a long time ago. The immediate incentive is that the staff they want/need isn't doing the thing. A strike is not a protest. It's a negotiating tactic when you have much else leverage than your ability to work. Realistically scabs/contractors might lessen the strike's leverage. The strike may push the publisher to go "staff-less". Larger organized labor might be able to hold Harpers to account for working around the strike -- like if contractors were organized, if scabbing made it hard to get hired elsewhere. But that's not where labor is at currently.