A strike on the Long Island Rail Road was averted — for now — as union officials took an unprecedented move Monday to ask the Trump administration to intervene. A coalition of five unions wants the feds to put together a presidential emergency board, labor leaders said during a press conference — as they took numerous shots at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Gov. Hochul. But the Manhattan Institute’s Ken Girardin explains why it’s a bad idea:

Labor unions representing Long Island Rail Road employees went full-steam ahead this month toward a destructive strike, only to hit the brakes when the Hochul administration didn’t blink.

Now they’re appealing to the Dealmaker-in-Chief, President Trump, to help them save face.

For the sake of Long Island commuters, New York taxpayers and his own credibility regarding government efficiency, President Trump should say no, and reroute them back to the same negotiating table that labor walked away from.

The unions representing about half of LIRR employees for weeks have been threatening to walk off the job.

But this week, as their Thursday deadline neared, they changed their tune, and said they’re asking President Trump to appoint a federal board to help settle their yearslong contract dispute.

“This action does not mean a strike won’t happen,” one of the union heads said. “But it does mean it won’t happen now.”

For those of you who don’t speak Long Island: The unions are trying to play Trump.

The findings of a Presidential Emergency Board, which they want Trump to create, aren’t binding. As they made clear Monday, they could still go on strike and cripple the nation’s busiest commuter rail service.

PEBs generally do a poor job of getting in the weeds about what’s preventing a deal.

In this case, the core problem is that the Long Island Rail Road is still operating like it’s the 1960s, when it was acquired by New York state government.

Its engineers get paid an extra day’s pay — sometimes more — if they operate a diesel locomotive and an electric locomotive on the same shift. Union work rules require LIRR to pay people extra just for doing their regular jobs and prevent LIRR from modifying their job descriptions in ways that would be no-brainers in the private sector.

A PEB got involved between the LIRR and its unions in 1994, but wouldn’t touch “sensitive issues” about inefficient work rules. And the unions went on strike anyway.

The LIRR has offered its workers significant raises (on top of its platinum-clad benefits) but demanded changes to their inefficient work rules. But that would threaten the system that lets individual LIRR employees take home over $100,000 (and sometimes more than $200,000) in overtime alone.

The unions instead are trying to buy time as other transit contracts in New York come close to expiring, so that they can mount a maximum pressure campaign next year — while the state budget is being negotiated and while the governor and state lawmakers are running in the June primary.

It’s important to remember that the Long Island Rail Road doesn’t make money. In fact, its parent organization (the Metropolitan Transportation Authority) gets most of its funding from New York businesses and residents through a growing list of taxes and other charges (such as the congestion pricing on Manhattan).

 A more efficient transit operation could provide better service at a lower cost. The LIRR unions aren’t the only group standing in the way of that, but they’re certainly representative examples.

If President Trump gets involved and hands the unions the stalling tactic they want, his critics are likely to blame him for inefficiencies and dysfunction that long predate his time in public office. His supporters on Long Island will get to pay more in taxes and fares for their trouble.

Getting involved with the LIRR labor dispute wouldn’t be a gamble for the White House — it would be a sure loser.

Fortunately it’s one they can easily avoid.

Ken Girardin is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.