Logan Robinson details the shackles imposed by the UAW’s collective bargaining agreement–“a small telephone book”–on the Big Three and argues:

It is a good thing that Congress and the Bush administration wish to save the domestic auto industry, because without help from Washington the industry isn’t capable of saving itself. It isn’t capable of dealing with the legal impediments that have grown up around it, like franchise and CAFE laws, and it’s not capable of dealing effectively with the UAW.

The Bush administration’s bailout listed as “additional targets” that work rules, as well as wages, become competitive with the transplants by Dec. 31, 2009. In reaction, Mr. Gettlefinger said that the UAW has already made “substantial sacrifices” and “will work with the Obama administration and the new Congress to ensure that these unfair conditions are removed.” As an elected official, he cannot say otherwise. If he did, his members would quickly find someone more radical to lead them.

As the Obama administration takes the helm, the key political question is whether the Democratic Party, which has so benefited from union support, will have the courage to push the UAW into a more reasonable relationship with the Detroit Three. Namely, a relationship in which employee relations and entitlements approximate those found in the “financially viable” sector of the U.S. automotive industry — i.e., the foreign transplants. If the Obama administration does not force the UAW to make further concessions, it will not be able to save the Detroit Three, no matter how many green cars they roll off the assembly line.

But this assessment of the Bush administration’s role in “saving” the auto industry seems to ignore reality. The moment at which the Big Three could have dealt effectively with the UAW was when the companies were on the verge of bankruptcy. Then, the companies and the Bush administration could have either insisted on stringent wage and benefit cuts (as Sen. Bob Corker suggested). Or, alternatively, they could have set up a pre-packaged bankruptcy whereby a judge would do the dirty work for them.

It seems inconceivable that the Obama administration, which owes so much to Big Labor, would be tougher on the UAW than the Bush administration, which had nothing to lose (other than some quixotic view of its own legacy) by holding firm. The Bush administration did the car companies and its employees (not to mention the taxpayers) no favors by kicking the can down the road. Indeed, they made it that much harder for a Democratic administration to exact needed reform from its Big Labor sponsors. After all, if George W. Bush helped them, why wouldn’t Barack Obama?

The Bush administration blew its opportunity to get a handle on the labor costs and restrictions that have helped to cripple the domestic car industry. The car companies will now likely sink, under the continued weight of their union obligations. But not before billions more of the taxpayers’ money are wasted.