Essential services are an exception to the right to strike. You spoke eloquently about the right to strike, and I share your feeling on the subject. It is what workers have. It is the prime instrument workers have, and we don't quarrel with that, so please don't read that into anything you've heard here.
The exception to the right to strike is insofar as public safety is proven to be in peril. Certain workers, not all, will be asked and required to continue to work notwithstanding a law that's proposed that will prevent anyone else from working, which by the way includes preventing anyone who wants to go back to work from going back to work if they're members of a bargaining unit, and that's happened more than once.