Detroit

Collier speaks to an Autoworker in Hamtramck

D’Artagnan Collier is running in the November 2 election as the Socialist Equality Party candidate for state representative in Michigan’s 9th District in Detroit. Collier was placed on the ballot in late July, after the SEP submitted nominating petitions with the signatures of 1,129 Detroit voters.

Collier, 42, joined the socialist movement as a Detroit high school student in 1984 and has spent his entire adult life fighting for the working class. He was the party’s candidate for Detroit mayor in 2009 and a founding member of the Committee Against Utility Shutoffs (CAUS).

As a city worker in Detroit, he has opposed Mayor David Bing’s demands for deep wage and job cuts to be imposed on the city’s 13,000 municipal workers. He has fought to mobilize the working class to defend jobs and living standards and oppose public service cuts being demanded by the Democratic Party-controlled city and state governments. He has opposed the treachery of the city worker unions in collaborating in these attacks and fought for workers to organize independently of the union apparatus.

Detroit teachers protesting concessions

The Socialist Equality Party calls on all teachers and school employees to fight for a unified struggle, alongside workers throughout the city and state, to defeat the demand for wage and benefit concessions, layoffs and the gutting of public education and other basic services by big business and the Democrats and Republicans.

Detroit city workers opposed to Mayor David Bing’s demands for layoffs and furloughs require a new strategy.

No sooner was the primary election over than Bing stepped up his attack on city workers. The city is planning 500 layoffs this month, on top of the hundreds already implemented since May. The mayor wants the city’s 13,000 employees to accept pay cuts of 10 to 20 percent through furloughs and workweek reductions.

D’Artagnan Collier, the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate in the upcoming Detroit mayoral election, spoke Tuesday at a moderated mayoral forum held at a youth development center in Detroit’s New Center Area. Collier and other candidates were asked to present their programs, placing specific emphasis on their positions with regards to education and youth development.

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D’Artagnan Collier Speaking to Frank Heleeji and Ali, the family’s next-door neighbours

A man and his three children all died tragically from carbon monoxide poisoning on Detroit's west side early Thursday morning. The poisonous gas came from a generator the family was using after the local electricity provider, DTE Energy, shut off service for non-payment.

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Maribel Hernandez

At a public meeting on Thursday, students, parents and community members urged Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, to reverse the decision to remove the principal, Rebecca Luna, from Western International High School in southwest Detroit. The pleas fell on deaf ears.