A New Coat Of Paint

I love the Geico ads, particularly the caveman series but even a firm with the credentials of the The Martin Agency will be unable to make a silk purse out of the Beast of Bentonville.

WalMart’s Volksgemeinschaft saga series continues with fancy foot work from The Martin Agency. New talking points for the WalMart/Edelman ‘war room’ bloggers?

WalMart- We are already pissing on our own grave with the help of Edelman.

WalMart’s Volksgemeinschaft ?

Is that where we put on one of those Nazi T-shirts that
Wal-Mart is ‘NOT’ selling and sing ‘Wal-Mart ueber Alles’?

The trouble with this is that Wal-Mart’s problems are not about their marketing, their problems are about their values

Absolutely correct. For years Wal-Mart has been transforming itself into an unfriendly place to work, and as a result, anyone with any talent or brains has left. Desperate to keep the doors open, management had to hire whoever they could. I used to tell my people, “We hired the best of who applied. Imagine who we rejected..”

Now Wal-Mart is populated by overworked, undereducated unhappy people, who know they are being mistreated but lack the education to get a better job. That trapped feeling creates the wonderful, customer focused atmosphere in the stores today.

Yes, Don, you certainly have a point. The current Wal-Mart, lacking any “talent or brains” and populated by “overworked, undereducated people” who are “mistreated” certainly creates the “wonderful, customer focused (sarcasm) atmosphere in the stores today”. The decline of Wal-Mart is so obvious, I don’t know how anyone cannot see it. Evidence?

In the early days of Wal-Mart, most of the top management and store managers didn’t have college educations. Now, only hourly people are less educated.

In the days when Mr. Sam ran Wal-Mart, employees earned enough to buy a 3-bedroom suburban home, 2 new cars, and put their kids through college in addition to having 100% paid health care, dental & vision for the entire family.

More obviously pointing to Wal-Mart’s decline is the current year fiscal results. Wal-Mart only rang up a 44th consecutive year of record sales & profits. They only opened 350 + new stores and only added 80,000 new employees. They only managed to convince 130 million customers per week to shop there and they could only get 10 applicants for each job opening. They only managed $340 billion in sales in 2006.

Yes, it is clear to any intelligent observer that Wal-Mart is, indeed, in a decline.......

In today’s economy, there are any number of educated
and undereducated people out of work. There are times
when people have to lower their own overqualifications
to find work at places such as Wal-Mart. “Give me a
job, and I’ll act as stupid as he rest of you,” stated
one BC cartoon years ago.

My main problem is trying to convince people working
elsewhere that Wal-Mart is not as good as they think
it is. At my bank, several tellers seem almost
envious that I work at Wal-Mart. After seeing my pay
checks, I must constantly remind them that Wal-Mart
is not that great as all that, and that they are looking
at this corporation as outsiders.

The manager of a local restaurant has been asking
me if I would suggest that he apply for work at Wal-
Mart. I kept saying no. He finally got the message:
he simply transferred to another restaurant in his
own chain.

HEY “ELLIS"… learn to read!

What do all the facts and figures you endlessly vomit up on this blog have to do with Don in CT’s statement?

I believe he stated that Wal-Mart’s problems “are about their values.”

Don,

“I used to tell my people, “We hired the best of who applied. Imagine who we rejected..” “

Think about that, you told your people, that THEY were, worse than REJECTS!!  No wonder they feel bad about their jobs.

“but lack the education to get a better job.”

Here again, you discredit your fellow employees, but then, isn’t the solution to the problem, getting a better education?  Or, is it that Wal-Mart should just increase wages and benefits, for employees who are not smart enough to qualify for a job elsewhere? 

I guess, I’ll just never understand the thinking that goes into someone saying, “I’m not educated or experienced enough to get a ‘good’ job elsewhere, so Wal-Mart should just pay me as if I were at a ‘good’ job, why, because I exist and besides they have a lot of money”.

Rob in Surfside,

“At my bank, several tellers seem almost envious that I work at Wal-Mart. After seeing my pay checks, I must constantly remind them that Wal-Mart is not that great as all that, and that they are looking at this corporation as outsiders.”

Yes, and as outsiders, they see that you are making more than they are!!!  And, in most cases, it requires a better education level to be a bank teller, than it does a shelf stocker, yet, Wal-Mart pays better than the banks do!!

I work at Walmart, have worked at two different locations and I can tell you simply… Walmart does not pay very well, I can get a dozen factory jobs that pay several dollars an hour more. I would be treated with far more respect at those jobs than at Walmart… again, I have worked in those places also.

Walmart management has the whole ‘we’re better than you’ attitude when it comes to regular employees. Heck, management doesn’t even get out of the way or be polite to the customers during business hours!

Good grief, if a busload of Walmart Managers were to arrive tomorrow who actually know what the heck they are doing and AGREE on what they are doing… my job would be pretty good. But no, it hasn’t happened.

I am constantly told to do something by one manager then told by another not to… they say they will look into the matter then you never hear a word from them. I have personally written to my district manager about issues at the store and have never heard anything back.

Walmart is a dump selling garbage for products. Spend the extra 10 cents or a dollar and get some quality, will ya? I get a 10% discount and don’t want to waste my money here.

“For years Wal-Mart has been transforming itself into an unfriendly place to work...”

The transformation you write of, Don, is from the warm and fuzzy smiley-faced Wal-Mart of Sam to the Beast of Bentonville!

I imagine myself a fly on the wall at a board meeting, or series of board meetings, when the decision to “transform” was made. Exactly when these meetings took place is a little hard to pin down but it would be after Sam died (1992).

Regardless of exactly when, at some point the spawn of Sam realized that He was really dead and gone and wouldn’t be bursting in the door at any minute to box their ears for misbehaving.

And what I imagine happening then would have been a sight to behold.  All those years of growing up wealthy with a skin-flint for an old man with His humiliating bumpkin ways gathered itself into the largest coalescence of greed the world has ever seen!

“OK, boys and girls, let’s milk this puppy for all it’s worth!”

And the transformation began....

The Martin Agency eh? This photo just in-

http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/dean_martin.jpg

Ken

Why can we always count on you to embarass yourself? Mr. Sam hadn’t even run Wal-Mart since 1984. David Glass was CEO and he made the day to day decisions. He and Mr. Sam were in complete agreement. The Waltons did not work for Wal-Mart, unless you count Rob, who is the non-executive chairman.

If the Waltons were really interested in simply cashing out, they could have sold their stock. Instead-are you ready for this-they have taken dividends only. The Walton family, through their holding company, Walton Enterprises, held about 38% of Wal-Mart stock when Mr. Sam died. Mr. Sam and his four children each held a 20% stake in Walton Enterprises BEFORE he died. After his death, they still did not sell stock. In fact, today, the family, both through their holding company and their individual accounts, holds just over 39% of Wal-Mart’s outstanding shares. It would seem that they have actually BOUGHT stock.

Why didn’t the Waltons simply sell their stock when they could have gotten $100 + billion for it? Oh, that’s right Ken: they are greedy. That’s why, instead of an instant $100 billion, they collect $1 billion per year in dividends. They could have sold their stock, paid capital gains and still earned $3 + billion per year on the balance.

Obviously you do not know what you are talking about.

I’d love to read a current interview with David Glass.  I don’t think using him as an illustration of how things are the same now as when he ran things is such as smart idea.

No one said they wanted out.  I’m sure Robson does, but Jim still wants to be a banker.  After all, the profit margin of processing other people’s money is much higher than hawking groceries.

What I said was Sam built an empire and his spawn have turned it into a retail strip mining “machine”.

Chris in Maine,

“I work at Walmart, have worked at two different locations and I can tell you simply… Walmart does not pay very well, I can get a dozen factory jobs that pay several dollars an hour more. I would be treated with far more respect at those jobs than at Walmart… again, I have worked in those places also.”

So, you have worked at Wal-Mart and some factories as well, but, in the end, went back to Wal-Mart, right?  How smart is that, if the factories pay better and treat you better, why go back to Wal-Mart?  Unless, you couldn’t make it at the factories and HAD to go back to Wal-Mart!!!  Or, the work for the pay, is easier at Wal-Mart!!!

Ken V,

““OK, boys and girls, let’s milk this puppy for all it’s worth!” “

If the ‘transformation’ was to become a worse company, as you imply, wouldn’t the saying be:

“OK, boys and girls, let’s run this company into the ground!”

After all, that’s what you guys have been claiming has been happening there.  GREED would make them to want MORE, not lose it all in a failing company, wouldn’t it?  After all, when the stock price goes down, they LOSE money!!!  I would think that if they were really GREEDY, they would push to make things better, not worse, to make the stock price RISE, not FALL!!!

Ellis W.

You usually post items that I agree with, but the Waltons
(including Rob) did sell a lot of stock a few years ago.
Maybe three or 4 years ago.  You can look it up. They and some others at the top sold, and then the stock went down a couple of dollars.

I know for I used to follow WMstock very close.

When I worked for Wal-Mart - as a store manager - I had many long term, valued associates. They were frustrated that we were unable to attract similar new associates, hence the comment “we hired the best of who applied.” These people also were witness the the slow devaluation of their hard work and experience by Wal-Mart, and it frustrated me to no end to have to try and put a positive spin on a new policy that was so obviously bad for the associates.

It has gotten to the point that many in the owrkforce have such a bad impression of Wal-Mart that they won’t consider applying. Those that do know that wal-Mart is desperate for bodies and will hire anyone, and know that they can get away with murder because of the lack of help and Wa-Mart’s cumbersome “coaching for improvement” process, which requires mgmt to jump thru a million hoops to fire someone.

Wal-Mart’s growth in sales and profits can in large part be traced to the shift in using overseas suppliers for its goods, allowing it to get cheapers goods and improve the profit margins, and it’s cost reductions relating to labor expenses.

knowledgeable

I have to disagree with you. The Waltons own about 1% of Wal-Mart stock outside of their holding company. They still hold this and the holding company has not sold shares. Rob may have sold some individual shares. I cannot dispute that. However, no shares held by the family owned Walton Enterprises have been sold, to my knowledge.

Now, onto a slightly different topic.

February 27, 2007
An Assault On Corporate Speech
By George Will
WASHINGTON—Good for Adrienne Eaton of Rutgers University’s Labor Studies & Employment Relations Department. Her forthright description of a central issue in the debate about the Employee Free Choice Act, which she supports, clarifies why that legislation is symptomatic of a disagreeable tendency in today’s politics.
Labor unions hope this exquisitely mistitled act, which the House of Representatives probably will pass this week, will compensate for their dwindling persuasiveness as they try to convince workers to join. It would allow unions to organize workplaces without workers voting for unionization in elections with secret ballots. Instead, unions could use the “card check’’ system: Once a majority of a company’s employees signs a card expressing consent, the union is automatically certified as the bargaining agent for all the workers.
Unions say the card check system is needed to protect workers from anti-union pressure by employers before secret ballot elections. Such supposed pressure is one of organized labor’s alibis for declining membership.
There are, however, ample protections against employer pressures that really are abusive. Tellingly, the act would forbid employers from trying to influence—pressure?—employees by improving their lot: It would fine employers who, to reduce the incentive to unionize, give workers “unilateral’’—not negotiated—improvements in compensation or working conditions. Clearly, the act aims less to help workers than to herd them as dues-payers into unions.
Under the card check system, unions are able to, in effect, select the voters they want. It strips all workers of privacy and exposes them, one at a time, to the face-to-face pressure of union organizers who distribute and collect the cards. The Supreme Court has said that the card check system is “admittedly inferior to the election process.’’
Repealing a right—to secret ballots—long considered fundamental to democratic culture would be a radical act. But labor is desperate. The card check shortcut to unionization comes before Congress after last month’s announcement that union membership declined, yet again, in 2006, by 326,000.
The percentage of employees in unions fell from 12.5 to 12, down from 20.1 percent in 1983 and 35 percent in the 1950s. The growth area of organized labor is among public sector employees, 36.2 percent of whom are unionized, compared with just 7.4 percent of private sector employees.

cont…

Today’s work force is marvelously flexible. People entering the labor market at age 18 will have, on average, 10 employers by the time they are 38. Such mobile workers often do not see what value union membership would add to their lives.
What unions are trying to sell is decreasingly attractive to potential members, so unions are doing what declining businesses often do: They are seeking government protection, in the form of a law to insulate them from the rigors of competition. They want government to allow them to, in effect, silence the employers’ side of debates about the merits of unionization.
This is where professor Easton—again, she favors the “Employee Free Choice Act’’—is pertinent. Avoiding the sort of circumlocutions that Washington policymakers often use to conceal their thoughts, she said this to The New York Sun: “Because employers wield so much power, it’s hard to figure out what kinds of lines to draw about employer speech.’’
The Employee Free Choice Act would short-circuit the process of persuading workers through a public debate between unions and employers, the winner of which would be determined by workers casting secret ballots. Welcome to the political culture that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law is shaping. That law, which regulates the quantity, timing and content of political speech, is making it increasingly acceptable for interest groups to attempt to advance their social agendas by limiting their adversaries’ speech.
Senate Democrats might not find 60 votes to bring this Orwellian legislation—“free choice,’’ indeed—to a vote. But if it does reach the president’s desk, he will veto it. He should have vetoed McCain-Feingold. Its speech restrictions—applauded as virtuous by the (exempt) media—have legitimized talk about “drawing lines’’ to circumscribe the speech rights of entire categories of Americans, in this case employers.
Much recent academic writing about the First Amendment, and much of the jurisprudence about it, has “balanced’’ speech rights against other social goods, and has valued speech rights primarily as instrumental for other social goods. So there are, alas, ample precedents for this legislative attempt to truncate employers’ speech rights.
Still, herewith a modest proposal: Any member of Congress who was elected by a secret ballot should oppose the “Employee Free Choice Act.’’

Enjoy!

“Rob may have sold some individual shares."</i"

“<i>OK, boys and girls, let’s run this company into the ground!”

There are a growing number of investment analysts that agree with your assessment, Ellis.

Sorry…

<a >Link</a>

Ken

As I’ve told you before, insiders regularly sell shares. Bill Gates has been selling 20 million Microsoft shares per quarter for 5 years. He uses the cash to diversify his portifolio and fund his charitable foundation. Most people who hold a single stock diversify. The Waltons are an exception. Stock sales can be made for diversification, to pay capital gains taxes or to exercise options.

Michael Dell has sold so much Dell stock that more than 50% of his wealth is outside Dell. Google’s founders have sold a great deal of stock. This is not uncommon nor is it an indicator of poor performance or lack of confidence in the company’s future. If the Waltons were really worried about the future, they would have sold off their stock when Mr. Sam died since everyone wrote Wal-Mart off at that point.

Stock sales by insiders can mean a great many things. It usually doesn’t indicate problems.

Tell me, Ellis, how much WMT does Robson still hold?