There actually is a point about suicides and other problems: During the early 1980s when the Rust Belt was suffering, the rates of divorce, domestic violence, infant mortality, alcoholism, and suicide all went through the roof.

Sadly I blame the UAW, for then and for what's happened to Detroit since, but it still happened. It was grim. Sadly, a UAW like solution solves some problems but creates some bigger ones including just killing off the whole industry it tried to 'organize'.