For three “big-box stores” seeking to set up shop in New York City, Wal-Mart, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Ikea, yesterday was a rough day.

The alliance of organized labor and small business that has galvanized in opposition to Wal-Mart’s bid to enter New York City celebrated a victory when a City Council subcommittee unanimously rejected a permit for BJ’s Wholesale Club to build its first Bronx outlet. The issue, set to go before the full council next week, is now not expected to win approval.

While criticism of the BJ’s plan centered on traffic considerations, the council member representing the contended district criticized the committee for kowtowing to organized labor. The Central Labor Council, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, among others, have been active opponents of letting BJ’s and Wal-Mart open stores in New York. Neither company has unionized workers in America.

The sentiment isn’t universal in New York.

A Democratic council member from the Bronx, Madeline Provenzano, said the low prices and the jobs at BJ’s would help the surrounding low-income community.

“All of this stuff is just a great big smokescreen because we all know that the bottom line is the union,” she said. “I’ve been pro-union all of my political life, but in this matter, I say to the union, ‘Butt out.’ “

Ms. Provenzano, who did not participate in the vote because she is not on the committee, said: “It’s the perfect location. There are no homes nearby, there’s no elementary schools, no churches, no playgrounds, no hospitals.”

Members of the council’s subcommittee on zoning and franchises said that previous studies by Community Board 10, which recommended approval of the permit, did not consider the store’s likely effect on several major thoroughfares, and that was the reason for the rejection.

“The issue of the traffic has been the main issue in this consideration since the beginning,” a Queens council member, Melinda Katz, said. “The Bruckner Expressway truly concerns me, and the traffic that would result from BJ’s being placed in that area.”

Yesterday afternoon, the attention at City Hall shifted to Wal-Mart, in a hearing the council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor held to urge the city to create new labor laws to cover big-box stores.

“Of major concern to those in both the retail and grocery industries is how bigbox stores treat their workers,” the chairman of the Civil Service and Labor Committee, Council Member Joseph Addabbo Jr. of Queens, said. “There are concerns about employees’ being paid a lower wage, there are concerns about outsourcing labor to foreign countries to decrease the labor costs and the cost of making the goods, there are concerns about employees and how they are able to secure their health care.”

It was the second City Hall hearing focusing on Wal-Mart, and the second time the world’s largest retailer sent a letter explaining scheduling conflicts had prevented its representatives from attending the meeting.

“We are working to share information and set the record straight,” the company’s Eastern Region spokeswoman, Mia Masten, wrote in a letter sent to the council. “While we haven’t finalized any agreements within the five boroughs, there are several locations that we are now considering. Once we do enter New York City, we will offer our associates competitive wages, health benefits, profit sharing, life insurance, dental coverage, a stock saving plan with the company match, and education discounts.”

Among the three big-box stores, the 346,000-square-foot Ikea store planned for the Brooklyn waterfront in Red Hook is the furthest along in the process. The City Planning Commission and the City Council approved the Swedish superstore last October.

Yesterday, however, the Urban Environmental Law Center, on behalf of five Brooklyn residents and business owners, filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Manhattan to try to put the brakes on the Ikea plan.

The lawsuit alleges the Planning Commission and the council illegally rezoned the site, using a faulty environmental review and an Environmental Impact Statement employing unrealistic assumptions.

“The review was prejudged and papered over to reach a predetermined result, and we’re revealing the very legitimate holes in that review,” an attorney with the Urban Environmental Law Center, Antonia Bryson, said. “It’s the wrong plan for that site and it’s going to have an enormous detrimental impact on the surrounding community.”

Ikea appeared unconcerned about the newest roadblock. “This is nothing more than a nuisance suit with absolutely no basis in law,” an attorney for the home-furnishings store, Jesse Masyr, said in a statement. “Ikea Red Hook was the subject of an incredibly thorough review and we fully expect this case to be dismissed.”