Unions still oppose Wal-Mart despite unprecedented meeting with retailer

The Chicago Federation of Labor said today it would ask its City Council allies to reject Chicago’s second Wal-Mart after an unprecedented meeting between five Wal-Mart executives and five union leaders failed to produce follow-up talks.

Jorge Ramirez, the CFL’s secretary-treasurer, accused Wal-Mart of “going through the motions” when it sat down with organized labor on May 3 to hammer out an agreement that would avoid putting aldermen on the hot-seat.

During that meeting, Wal-Mart was presented with a “framework” and asked for more time to “run it up the flagpole” at the company’s Arkansas headquarters. It was not known whether the outline included labor’s long-standing demand that Wal-Mart pay its employees at least $11.03-an-hour.

Since that time, there has been no formal dialogue between the two sides and no response to the union proposal.