From accounts I've read, it does seem suspicious. The dismissed employees were not really shown any evidence for the dismissal. That said, these kind of hardball tactics is what union membership is for. I can talk all I want about how things ought to be, but what's important is how things actually are. The whole point of a worker union is strength through unity. If a union cannot stand up to things like this, it wasn't strong enough to make things happen.

Collectively, a union is supposed to wield sufficient leverage in negotiations with the employer such that they can exert pressure and extract concessions. If the union doesn't wield sufficient power to do that, the union can't really negotiate on behalf of its members. A union's power is directly proportional to how much financial harm the workers can cause their employers by stopping work and how difficult it is for the employers to replace them in that situation. If the union has insufficient membership or are too easily replaced, they have significantly reduced bargaining power. Conversely, the union can exercise its power by dissuading workers from working for this employer until they agree to a deal.

Even if these dismissals are illegal, it will take months or even years to go through the legal system to fight it. In the meantime, the dismissed union members aren't earning a living and things become very harsh for them. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that what really matters is how much leverage and power the union has to exert compared to the company. If the union lacks the leverage, there really isn't much they can do.

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