LAS VEGAS -Fast-fashion retailer H&M has signed a letter of intent to open a store at Tempe Marketplace and is pursuing locations at other Valley shopping centers, as well.

Although the agreement does not mean the deal is final, it does signal that the Swedish retailer is becoming more serious about opening its first location in Arizona.

H&M, which stand for Hennes & Mauritz, is also talking to Westcor, the Valley’s largest mall developer and owner, about a number of locations but is most interested in Scottsdale.

H&M, which has become the international king of so-called fast fashion by selling stylish, inexpensive clothes and accessories, would not comment Monday about any of its plans for the Valley.

“While our real estate department has been in the area looking at possible store sites, we are not able to speculate on when/where we will enter a market,” Lisa Sandberg, a New York-based spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

David Malin, a project manager for Phoenix-based Vestar Development Co., the company that is building Tempe Marketplace, said Monday that the retailer signed a letter of intent a couple of weeks ago to locate there.

Malin would not comment further about the deal, and it was unclear Monday when H&M would sign a lease.

Stacy Pearson, a Vestar spokeswoman, called the letter of intent “the first step of negotiations.” H&M has been listed among the retailers on Vestar’s site plans for Tempe Marketplace, a shopping center that will open this fall at Loops 101 and 202.

At a national retail convention Monday in Las Vegas, H&M was not featured on a 3-D model of Tempe Marketplace. But Malin did point out a space that Vestar is reserving for the retailer.

Meanwhile, H&M has not signed a similar letter of intent to locate at Fashion Square or any other Westcor property, Williams said.

Discussions are continuing, however. H&M apparently is having trouble finding a big enough space at the Scottsdale mall, but a makeover of the center’s eastern side, which will include a Barneys New York, may give it enough room to locate there, Williams said.

H&M also is looking at possible locations at Chandler Fashion Center, Arrowhead Town Center, SanTan Village in Gilbert and Estrella Falls, a regional mall in the development phase in Goodyear, he added.

More than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act made it illegal for employers to pay women less simply because of their sex, there’s still no state in the country where a typical woman earns as much as a man.

You’ve heard this statistic before: A woman earns just 77 cents for every man’s dollar in the United States.

But before you let this often-quoted 2005 figure get you down, note that you’re working in the right state. In Arizona, a working woman earned 83.8 percent of a man’s annual salary in 2005, well above the national average, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Arizona’s male-female salary gap was the second-smallest in the country. Only the gap in the District of Columbia was smaller.

“The fact that Arizona is up there near 84 percent really is outstanding compared to the nation,” said Avis Jones-DeWeever, program director for the institute.

The pay gap might be closing for Arizona’s women, but, as Jones-DeWeever points out, it’s probably not for the reason women want to hear.

“Even though the gap has closed a little bit, it’s closed in almost half of the states because men’s salaries have gone down,” Jones-DeWeever said. “We like rising tides to raise all boats. We want to expand opportunity for everyone.”

The nation’s salary gap narrows by just a fraction of a penny each year. The typical woman earned 77 cents for every man’s dollar in 2005.

That’s up slightly from 76.6 cents in 2002 and 73.7 cents in 2000, according to data culled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Over time, those pennies add up to a pricey disadvantage for women. The AFL-CIO figures that the average 25-year-old woman will lose roughly $455,000 to unequal pay during her working life.

But there are occupations where women can reverse the trend.

Technology is one of the few industries where top female executives are outpacing men in terms of pay.

Women information technology executives, including CEOs, CIOs, vice presidents and directors, earn 1.4 percent more than men in the same positions, according to a 2006 salary survey of 19,000 tech workers by Dice.com, an IT job site.

Sure, there’s still a salary gap among all technology jobs. Women in technology earned an average of 9.7 percent less than men in 2006, Dice.com found, but that’s improved from the 14 percent gap in 2002, when it began surveying IT workers.

There are other industries where women are outearning men.

In his book “Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap – and What Women Can Do About It,” San Francisco area-based author Warren Farrell identifies 39 jobs where women make at least 5 percent more than men.

Women who are employed as statisticians, automotive technicians and speech-language pathologists all earn 25 percent to 29 percent more than men in those jobs, Farrell says.

Certain careers might favor women, but paychecks are almost always influenced by how much time employees, male or female, are willing to devote to their jobs, Farrell says.

It’s a contest that men win more often than women.

Men are often willing to work more hours, while women opt to have a more balanced life, which includes spending time at home with family.

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Move comes after dispute between company, unions

Federal labor officials have filed a complaint against the Bashas’ supermarket chain, heating up a dispute between the grocer and union organizers over employees’ health care costs.

The National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that governs relations between unions and private-sector employers, filed the federal complaint against Chandler-based Bashas’ Supermarkets, which operates Bashas’, AJ’s Fine Foods and Food City stores, alleging unfair labor practices.

The board has also set a hearing for Feb. 15 at its Phoenix offices.

The federal complaint is the latest development in a feud that began in June, when Bashas’ started charging employees for some types of health coverage. Previously, basic health care was free.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 99, based in Phoenix, said the premiums violate an agreement it has with Bashas’ to negotiate changes to health insurance at nine of Bashas’ 158 stores.

Those nine stores include AJ’s at Central Avenue and Camelback Road in Phoenix, where two union members were arrested in May after speaking with employees about health insurance and refusing to leave the store.

AJ’s in Tucson is at 2805 E Skyline Drive.

In June, Local 99 filed federal charges against Bashas’ with the NLRB, which led the board to file the complaint and set a hearing date.

Local 99 President James McLaughlin said the union wants to recover the additional cash that Bashas’ employees have paid for health coverage since June. It also wants Bashas’ to readopt the health- care plan it had prior to June.

Mary Jo West, a Bashas’ spokeswoman, said in a statement Tuesday that an “overwhelming population” of employees appreciates the company’s benefit packages.

“This is another attempt by the union to force us to deal with them against the wishes of our employees,” West said.

Bashas’ must file an answer to the complaint by Jan. 11, according to complaint documents.

Federal workers were out Tuesday, the day of mourning for former President Ford, and calls to the labor board’s office in Phoenix were not returned.

“We think that the (labor board) did a good job investigating the charge and finding merit to the complaint,” McLaughlin said. “We’re pleased in the fact that the board saw the same problems we saw.”

Local 99 represents more than 17,000 workers, including employees of Fry’s and Safeway grocery stores.

Specialty sandwich chain expanding around state

The specialty sandwich chain Panera Bread Co., which specializes in homemade bread, could be coming to Tucson.

A franchise group plans to open 14 stores in Arizona, many of them in southern Arizona, within the next six years.

The group is led by Dennis and Shane Hitzeman and Tom McDonald. No deals for specific locations have been signed, Shane Hitzeman said.

They will join franchisee Steve Morris, who has a previously announced agreement with Panera to open 15 stores, mostly north of Interstate 10 in the Phoenix area and in northern Arizona by 2011.

Panera, based in Richmond Heights, Mo., sells sandwiches, salads, soups, baked goods and coffee drinks.

Morris will open the first Panera in Arizona in mid-November at Scottsdale Road and Loop 101.

Morris said another Panera will open in mid-December at Scottsdale and Camelback roads. Late next year, a store will open at Parke West at Northern Avenue and Loop 101 in Peoria, he said. Other deals are in the works.

Shane Hitzeman said his group’s first Panera store is expected to open next summer.

“Panera is just such an appealing brand,” Hitzeman said.

Panera’s debut will heighten the competition among casual sandwich joints in the Phoenix area, where Paradise Bakery has been the dominant force.

In 1993, Au Bon Pain Co. purchased the St. Louis company Panera and renovated the 20 bakery-cafés in the St. Louis area.

In May 1999, to expand Panera Bread into a national chain, Au Bon Pain Co. divested itself of all other chains, including Au Bon Pain, now owned by Compass Group North America. Au Bon Pain Co. then renamed itself Panera Bread Co.

Panera has 939 bakery-cafes in 37 states. About two-thirds of the stores are franchised.