"It was a standard first bargaining session," Mr. Hanley said.
Sunday at an undisclosed location in the first bargaining session between the deadlocked parties since Oct. 18.
Randi Weingarten, the union president, is to meet today with aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in the first bargaining session since March 6.
"In a first bargaining session, we never put money on the table," said the official, who insisted on anonymity.
Summoned by federal mediators, negotiators for the two sides yesterday held their first bargaining session since the walkout began.
Federal labor law generally bars unionized companies from unilaterally changing wages, hours or other conditions of employment, including health insurance coverage, without first bargaining with the union.
"This is a historic decision: the first bargaining order issued against Wal-Mart in the United States," Mike Leonard, executive vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said.
The Senate banking committee, under pressure from Secretary of State John Kerry, agreed to put a brief pause on its bill to avoid spoiling the first bargaining session in Geneva.
"The N.B.A. is not permitted to unilaterally impose new economic discipline against the players without first bargaining with the union," Billy Hunter, the union's executive director, said in a statement.
In central London, tourists from China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates swelled the lines of shoppers penned in by security guards and crowd barriers outside Selfridges, where the first bargain hunters began queuing at 11.30pm on Christmas Day.
