DEARBORN — It’s a concern that enters the minds of citizens every time a new Wal-Mart comes to town: What’s going to happen to the small businesses in the area?

With the recent opening of the Wal-Mart in Dearborn, one local group is hosting a meeting for concerned citizens, government officials and business owners. The group, called Wake Up Wal-Mart Downriver, fears that more Wal-Marts will go up in the future in the Downriver area and also wants to make sure that citizens of Dearborn have a chance to let their voices be heard.

The meeting will be held on Monday, April 14th at the Henry Ford Center for the Performing Arts from 1:00-9:00 p.m. The day will begin with a roundtable for community leaders including local government officials from 1:30-2:45 p.m. Cities expected to be represented include Allen Park, Lincoln Park, Melvindale and Dearborn.

From 3:00-3:30 p.m., a press conference will feature speakers from sponsors including the Interfaith Committee for Worker Issues; United Food and Commercial Workers Local 876; Metro Detroit AFL-CIO; and Apollo Printing and Graphics.

Wake Up Wal-Mart member Rose Papp is the person to call for those interested at 313.383.6592.  She explained why the meeting was being held and why her group fears that Wal-Marts are bad for small businesses.

“We’ve been reading several books about Wal-Mart coming in, we’re worried about them sneaking in quietly (into her home town of Lincoln Park),” she said.

“From what we hear, there’s supposed to be great turnover for people working there because of the conditions.”

Papp believes that Wal-Mart’s partnership with ACCESS in Dearborn (the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services) was a smart move but fears that the abundance of people projected to take their business to the mega store on 5851 Mercury Drive will eventually hurt small business leaders, even though the store has made great strides to cater to the Arab American community.

Another member of Wake Up Wal-Mart, Ann Marschner, talked about some of the other tactics Wal-Mart has used in the past to keep wages low and keep power out of the hands of its employees. This is one of her main concerns with the new Dearborn store.

“We don’t like the way they put small businesses out of business and we don’t think they treat their employees well,” she said. “When they first open their store they make it look like they treat employees well, however.”

The idea for the meeting was proposed by the International Labor Rights Forum, which is on a speaking tour across the U.S. Sponsors jumped in to help put together the meeting and the date was set.

The ILRF will also bring speakers for the event from Wal-Mart’s overseas operations, who will talk about the conditions they see in their home countries. One is from Bangladesh and the other is from Costa Rica. Marschner gave her thoughts on the way workers from other countries are treated.

“We don’t like what they’re doing to the overseas workers either; some are working for as little as six cents an hour,” she said. “They work them overtime but sometimes don’t pay them overtime.”

She also cited a situation in northern Canada where employees voted in a union and Wal-Mart promptly closed the store and a story in Texas where butchers voted in a union and Wal-Mart immediately switched to pre-packaged meats.

Marschner has talked with the American-Arab Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn and expects to get a representative from the group at the meeting, and she also invites small business owners from the city to come to the meeting to voice any concerns.

She started Wake Up Wal-Mart to prevent the possibility of Wal-Mart “sneaking” into Allen Park or Lincoln Park but she also looks forward to giving a sounding board for people in Dearborn who wonder how much they will be affected by the new store.

One other concerned citizen who worries about the problems Wal-Mart could cause for local businesses is Kenwah Dabaja, whose father owns Dabaja Tire in Dearborn. She will be attending the meeting to speak on behalf of all local businesses, not just her father’s store.

“Wal-Mart and its corporate practices have been documented and studied and there’s been nationwide research on this and how it affects small businesses,” she said.

“When a business can offer smaller prices because of their buying power, of course it’s going to hurt the small businesses. We have to support America and support our businesses.”

Dabaja also stressed that she didn’t necessarily want to point all the blame at Wal-Mart. She mainly wanted to stress that it is up to the community to support the stores that are its lifeblood.

“It’s not an anti-Wal-Mart issue as much as it is a ‘support our local community businesses’ issue,” she said. “In order to do that you need to give (customers) background as to why they shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart (as opposed to local businesses).”

Meanwhile, business was good at the Wal-Mart in Dearborn, and store manager Bill Bartell said he hadn’t heard about the meeting or concerns raised by local residents.

“One thing I can tell you is customers are delighted to have us here. We have had a strong response from our customers. It’s been going very well and everybody’s been very happy with the new store.”