> businesses increase costs to meet the new cost of labor requirements
These strikes, more often than not, are happening at larger firms (e.g., incumbent monopolies like John Deere, Kelloggs, Nabisco, etc.) with much larger profit margins. They would sooner wear the costs and pay lower dividends than hurt their competitive margin. But I do take your point that small-to-medium sized business take the brunt of top-down government policy changes like a minimum wage increase, and this can hurt competition.
These strikes, more often than not, are happening at larger firms (e.g., incumbent monopolies like John Deere, Kelloggs, Nabisco, etc.) with much larger profit margins. They would sooner wear the costs and pay lower dividends than hurt their competitive margin. But I do take your point that small-to-medium sized business take the brunt of top-down government policy changes like a minimum wage increase, and this can hurt competition.