BRIDGEPORT -- The United Food & Commercial Workers Union and Price Rite are locked in battle over an organizing campaign, and this time the city is ground zero.

Two former workers at the Bridgeport supermarket rallied with more than 20 union representatives Wednesday at the plaza entrance to the Price Rite at 164 Boston Ave. The discount grocer represents a big target for the UFCW. Price Rite has 40 stores in five states with about 80 employees per store. There also were UFCW rallies in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York.

Price Rite is a wholly owned subsidiary of New Jersey-based Wakefern Food Corp., a private retailer-owned cooperative with annual sales of more than $10 billion that also operates ShopRite supermarkets.

Erica Ramos and Anita Davis said they were hired to ring up customers' purchases, but management fired them after they talked to union organizers. Both women said the official reason they were let go involved their tills. Davis, who worked there for two months, said her till came up $5 more while Ramos said her till came up $30 less after she was on the job for three days.

The women said they were hired at $8 an hour part time and were told health care benefits weren't available to part-time employees, a charge a Rite Price executive denied.

Ramos said when she applied she asked for a job in the stockroom or in the meat department, which had openings, but they made her a cashier and then let her go three days later with some other workers.

"Had I known they were going to act like this I would never have applied there," Davis said. Davis had been working in Norwalk for nearly three years, she said, when she was laid off by an Internet-based retailer. She then got the job at Price Rite.

Although the former employees said workers were being mistreated, Samuel Profit, who still works at the store, disagreed.

"I'm so against the union," Profit said, citing management's willingness to transfer him from being a cashier to collecting carts in the parking lot. With the grocer's head of human resources standing next to him, Profit said that in the seven months he's worked at the store, managers have been flexible with his hours and are willing to listen to his suggestions to improve the store.

"You're only going to get out of your job what you put into it," he said. "I'm not here to tell Price Rite how to run their business," Finch said, "I support the right to vote a union in."

Finch with Silva and Caruso all said they are most concerned about the business paying a living wage and that a union is not a hindrance to success or expansion. They pointed to rival Stop & Shop, which is unionized, but has been able to expand in Connecticut.

"I love them being here," said Silva of the more than 100 jobs Price Rite has created and the taxes it pays. "But people who are working here are giving a lot for a little . . . I'm not looking to kill them with a union, just have them pay a living wage."

"Our people keep telling them no," said Kathy Freedman, Price Rite's corporate human resources manager.

She defended Price Rite's right to offer pay and benefits that are standards in the industry.

"Retail is mostly part time," said Freeman, adding that the store's wages are "competitive."

She also said the last time there was a unionizing effort was a decade ago and that the company supports its employees right to choose.

Freedman was presented with a letter by the UFCW asking Price Rite to allow workers the freedom to choose a union.

Jorge Cabrera Jr., the UFCW International representative, said the union has filed charges with the state Board of Labor Relations regarding Ramos' and Davis' firings.

Brian Petronella, president of UFCW Local 371, said his union is getting more calls from workers these days interested in organizing.

He said that in addition to the women possibly being retaliated against, the union also has received complaints about management yelling at workers and not allowing them to take bathroom breaks.

Job security is the No. 1 reason people are contacting him, Petronella said. Other grievances include higher health care costs for employees, stopping 401(k) contributions and freezing wages, he said.