Strike this strike

The unions representing 5,000 Long Island Rail Road workers belong at the bargaining table on Friday for talks that should speedily end the threat of a July 20 strike. In fact, they should be preparing to declare victory based on the latest proposal presented by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Tom Prendergast.

Bowing to reality, Prendergast offered the unions terms that are far more generous than those won by the agency’s subway and bus workers, who are represented by a separate labor organization and are barred by law from striking.

With a tweak or two, he met the most important benchmarks recommended by a presidential mediation panel for presently employed LIRR staff while asking for reasonable savings in the cost of future hires. The unions must now recognize that paralyzing regional transportation by striking would be unconscionable.

The subway and bus workers won a five-year deal with raises totaling 8.25%. The presidential panel’s non-binding recommendation for the LIRR — which already pays the nation’s highest railroad salaries — called for 17% hikes over six years, a figure that would boost the MTA’s costs by $40 million annually.

Prendergast’s major request on this front would be to stretch the 17% in hikes over seven years, not six. To offset that ding, he proposed upping some shift payments and boosting lump-sum retroactive checks. He would require workers to contribute less to health-care coverage than proposed by the unions — 2% rather than 2.25%.

As for future workers, they would contribute 4% to health coverage, pay into their pensions for as long as they are on the payroll (not just for 10 years) and take a few more years to step up to maximum salaries. There, Prendergast is asking for long-term savings that would leave the staff in great shape while sparing the riders fare hikes.

Rather than whining that Prendergast unveiled the terms publicly, the unions might well have asked, “Where do we sign?”