DEARBORN — The Wal-Mart Workers Speaking Tour stopped at the site of one of the country’s newest Wal-Marts, Dearborn, on Monday to give citizens a first-hand look at some of the company’s labor practices overseas.

It was the final event in a day-long series of meetings for community leaders, small business owners, and citizens to voice their concerns about the massive retail chain’s arrival in the city. About 40 people attended the final session.

Two overseas workers, Didier Leiton of Costa Rica and Phal Savin of Cambodia, detailed their struggles in their home countries and what life is like working for Wal-Mart’s operations.

Savin was recently fired from the King’s Land factory for forming a union and is the vice president of the Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Worker Democratic Union. She has spent many years working clothing companies that supply Wal-Marts.

At overseas operations like these, firing or even threatening workers who join or attempt to create unions is a common problem, which ultimately keeps wages extremely low. 

“When the union workers disagree with management, they were all fired,” said Savin.

In her case, the clothing supplier fired 19 union activists. Sometimes, however, Savin sees things far worse. Three union activists were murdered in Cambodia recently and Savin also had her life threatened.

Leiton experienced similar problems in Costa Rica. As a 17-year veteran worker on pineapple and banana plantations, he faced his own problems with poor working conditions and has been blacklisted by companies for his involvement with unions.

The workers at his plantations only make an average of $1.10 U.S. per hour and on top of that face health problems due to the chemical pesticides sprayed on fruit. Many of them come down with respiratory problems and Leiton was rendered sterile as well. Some of them even died.

Some of the companies also employ squads of “bullies” as Leiton called them to sway public opinion with threats and violence. Leiton has had his life threatened before as well, and was also mugged and had his motorcycle and important documents stolen from him.

Other horrors Leiton saw included animals like monkeys and sloths being buried alive as giant machines cleared sections of forest in order to make more room to grow crops. Rivers and lakes have also been contaminated from runoff from the plantations.

“We need to respect the environment and our health to leave a better future for upcoming generations,” he said.

Despite the hardships he has faced, Leiton was glad to be in attendance and finished his first speech with an upbeat message for the crowd.

“I think if we can collaborate together, we can achieve this,” he said.

Leiton urged people to find out where their tax dollars are going and to make sure they’re not being spent to encourage labor practices that are inhumane and unfair.

Event emcee Victoria Kaplan from the SweatFree Communities organization that acts as a watchdog for labor practices continued the upbeat tone as she offered the audience suggestions for fighting for better work conditions overseas. She also stressed that the issue is not just a Wal-Mart issue by any stretch and for customers not to feel better by going to Target for instance. She merely said she was picking on Wal-Mart because they are the biggest of the group.

Her first suggestion was to communicate with the companies. She urged people to do their research on working practices and to write letters and make phone calls and complaints because they will listen. The Web sites www.sweatfree.org and www.sweatshopwatch.org are good for keeping tabs on companies’ practices.

Kaplan also passed out a “shop with a conscience” guide to products that are created using fair labor practices. Most of these companies have Web sites including www.nosweatapparel.com and www.justiceclothing.com.

She stressed the need to contribute financially to groups such as hers because most of them are non-profit organizations as well.

Finally, she told the audience to put pressure on the government to make sure they’re spending tax dollars on the right items. One initiative her group has taken is trying to get the Michigan State Government to take the $40 million it spends on police, firefighter, and other work uniforms and to use it on companies that have fair labor practices. Vermont recently became the seventh state to adopt that stance and Illinois is ready to do the same. But Kaplan said Illinois is taking a wait-and-see approach with their uniforms and that another big state like Michigan making the switch would spur them to act on the plan.

The event was deemed a success as many of the audience members were moved by the presentations and filled out forms and signed petitions to be distributed to lawmakers and companies.

Dearborn resident Fayrouz Saad showed up for the day’s events to find out as much information as she could regarding Wal-Mart’s practices so she could be armed with knowledge for the future.

“I always heard about unfair labor practices and I wanted to see first-hand what it was all about,” she said.

Saad fears that the smaller businesses will have a hard time dealing with the new Wal-Mart and she planned to take some of Kaplan’s suggestions to heart. She was also concerned about Wal-Mart’s buying power and how it relates to local businesses.

“I understand that Dearborn was built on small businesses,” she said. “This is not just an Arab American thing but a Dearborn thing as well.”