Well you have to wonder if at a support so high Wikimedia couldn't skip the "fight and win" stage to earn some goodwill which might get them more favourable terms. In open confrontation, everyone loses. Takes energy away from everything else and generates a ton of bad publicity.

Asking for recognition is considered a courtesy. It's a symbolic act to establish that management will be the ones standing in the way of the workers, not your union

the law is that they have to recognize if a majority of workers vote to unionize in an National Labor Relations Board secret ballot, so in any case this is a formality