For several weeks in the summer, from 7 p.m. until midnight, a pregnant Donna DiIenno sat in a parking lot in front of the Washington Township Wal-Mart, where she had once worked.

Managers stepped out of the store and asked her to leave. Occasionally, a former coworker walked over and surreptitiously picked up a union authorization card.

DiIenno, who had worked at the store for nine years and once was an ardent Wal-Mart defender, became troubled in recent years by what she described as the unfair treatment and intimidation of employees.

When the 40-year-old Monroe Township woman voiced concerns over staff changes, she was called into a meeting with a manager and subsequently fired for "insubordination."

It was then that she became a foot soldier in the growing battle between the nation's largest corporation and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which is striving to organize Wal-Mart's 1.2 million employees.

"Somebody needs to fight the fight," DiIenno said this month.

A national Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the company prohibited the mistreatment of employees - called associates - and listened to their concerns.

The union acknowledges that taking on the retail colossus will be an uphill battle, but says it has no choice because the stakes are enormously high.

"We can't just walk away and let Wal-Mart take over working America as we know it," said Peg Michalowski, the Wal-Mart coordinator for the union's Local 1360, based in West Berlin. If Wal-Mart expands unchecked, union officials say, it will threaten labor's livelihood and lead other companies in a "race to the bottom" of wages, benefits and worker treatment.

Wal-Mart says that is not the case. "There's a lot of misinformation out there," national spokeswoman Christie Gallagher said. "Because of our size, we're a target. There are numerous groups out there who do not want us to succeed for their own reasons."

Describing the company as "pro-associate," Gallagher said Wal-Mart provided very competitive wages and benefits as well as a 401(k) plan, a profit-sharing program and stock purchases.

"There are many industries where unions are right for the industry," Gallagher said. "But, honestly, unions are certainly not right for Wal-Mart. We don't believe that a third-party representation would improve anything with our relationships. And we value our culture, and we don't think it would add anything to our culture."

With $244.5 billion in sales during fiscal 2003, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the country's top private employer, with more than 3,000 stores nationwide, including 25 in the Philadelphia area. Although it has earned the admiration of many economists and consumers, critics say it shutters mom-and-pop stores and sends manufacturing jobs overseas.

The drive to unionize reaches across the Philadelphia region. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has targeted three other stores in southern and central New Jersey - Burlington Township, Pennsville, and Hamilton Township in Mercer County - and three in Pennsylvania, including a South Philadelphia Wal-Mart.

Leonard Purnell, who oversees the union's organizing efforts at eastern Pennsylvania Wal-Marts, said that if it secured a contract at one store, others might follow suit. "Winning one store wall to wall and then getting a contract would create a domino effect," he said. "It would show people, 'Hey, yes, it can be done.' "

In Washington Township, DiIenno and local organizers say a union could provide better pay and benefits for employees, and give them a common voice to help set up grievance procedures and job-protection rules. She said that if she had union protection, her termination "would never have happened."

In August, her position as support manager was eliminated and she was offered a choice of new jobs with the same pay and hours. She was upset, she said, because she had worked so loyally and felt the company didn't appreciate the work she had done. So she used Wal-Mart's "open-door" policy and wrote a letter to the store manager expressing her frustrations.

Less than a week later, she was summoned to the district manager's office. According to DiIenno's exit interview, signed by another manager who was present, "Donna showed disrespect and insubordination by refusing to speak with [the district manager]. Donna was asked to please sit down two times and then instructed to sit by [the district manager] or speak with him. Donna stormed out the door and was very disrespectful."

DiIenno said the district manager would not tell her why she was there, so she said she'd rather stand. " 'Tell me why I'm in here so I can decide if I have to get somebody else in here,' " DiIenno said. "He said, 'Why are you being insubordinate?' I said, 'I'm not being insubordinate for refusing to sit down.' He pushed the door shut and said, 'You're not leaving until you sit down.' "

DiIenno opened the door and left, saying she had to finish her job. At that, the manager yelled: "You don't have a job."

DiIenno, whose baby is due next month, still does not know why she was called in for a meeting, but figures her letter was a factor. She said a Wal-Mart manager who has moved to a different store told her that the letter had "screamed union."

Store manager Frank Pellicori and district manager Don Fann did not return calls seeking comment. Gallagher, the national spokeswoman, said she could not comment on current or former employees but stressed that Wal-Mart was not antiunion and did not prohibit workers from discussing unions or retaliate against those who did.

Gallagher said Wal-Mart's open-door policy permitted workers to "go to any level of management, up to and including the CEO, and to discuss any ideas they have, any concerns, without fear of retaliation."

She added that Wal-Mart employees were free to unionize but had chosen not to.

The 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers Union sees it differently. Members say Wal-Mart has kept labor out with an aggressive strategy, including videos shown to new employees that portray unions as greedy and dishonest. And at the first hint of union activity, they say, the company dispatches special teams from corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., to dissuade workers from signing up.

"Once you start organizing, they put the hammer down, and the suits come in from Bentonville," said Brian Covely of Local 1360.

Gallagher acknowledged that such teams were used, but said their purpose was not to browbeat workers but rather "to answer questions the associates might have about the promises the union has made to them." She added that the meetings were voluntary.

A half-dozen employees at the Washington Township store, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal, said they had attended some of those gatherings. "It was mandatory that you go to these meetings," one said. "They said the union's going to come in and take your money and talk for you because they think you can't talk for yourself."

The union's effort to organize Wal-Mart comes amid a backdrop of labor complaints against the company and steadily declining membership among American unions.

Wal-Mart is facing about 40 lawsuits contending it forced employees to work off the clock, and a grand jury is investigating whether the company knew about alleged undocumented immigrants working in its stores.

Off-the-clock work is strictly prohibited by Wal-Mart, Gallagher said in response. The company is cooperating with the grand jury's investigation, another representative said.

As for organized labor, membership has dropped from 20.1 percent of the national workforce in 1983 to 13.2 percent last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Local organizers, who began the Washington Township effort in July, said they would keep trying to get a foothold. Representatives handed out cards at the store last week and will visit workers' homes. DiIenno plans to continue her union work once the baby is born and she gets settled.

They hope to petition for an election with the National Labor Relations Board by the summer.

Michalowski said that even if the union did not prevail, it would still have an effect.

"As long as we're campaigning, it keeps Wal-Mart accountable," she said. "They're going to have to watch their p's and q's a lot more closely."

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