If you stayed around after last night’s postgame show (Go Saints!), you saw that CBS debuted a new reality TV show called “Undercover Boss.” The AFL-CIO Blog gives you the premise:

As kids, we all loved the sugar-coated fairy tales of handsome and brave princes rescuing beautiful princesses from despotic kings.

The new CBS “reality” show “Undercover Boss” that debuted last night after the Super Bowl is a 21st century sugar-coated fairy tale. But this time, the brave prince is actually a CEO who goes undercover as a regular worker near the bottom of the food chain. There he finds how hard and dirty the job is; how stifling and draconian the company’s workplace rules are; and how crappy the pay is.

Then after walking so many miles in an employee’s work boots, the boss sees the light and promotes workers, raises pay, eases rules and promises a new found respect for all workers.

The AFL-CIO’s rebuttal is easy to predict: Most bosses don’t go undercover and even those who do don’t see anywhere. The only way to guarantee justice in the workplace is through a union:

The bosses portrayed on the show may indeed be sincere and a handful of workers will enjoy the benefits of their foxhole conversions. But what about the millions of workers whose CEO’s will never be on TV? That’s where unions come in: to ensure employees have a voice at the workplace, with family-supporting pay and affordable health care and retirement security.

Given the penchant for so many people to play Walmart associate for a day (or a month in Barbara Ehrenreich’s case), can’t you just see Mike Duke doing this? It would provide plenty of feelgood publicity, with no downside and no union.

I gotta admit: I haven’t seen the show yet, but my wife DVRed it for me. I’ll report back if there are any other sentiments from it worth reporting.

When I worked the after-school shift at Hart’s, we shifted gears 30 minutes before closing to front shelves (pull products to the front of the shelf and fill empty spaces) and sweep the floor. This was not a nice-to-do, it was a must-do.

The store manager on duty checked every night and you were in for an ass-chewin’ if you did a shoddy job.

When you race for the bottom in pricing, such necessities quickly go by the wayside.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

Robert would have had a field day with this story:

In the latest of a growing wave of brand consolidations, Walmart has sent Glad and Hefty bags packing from its food-storage shelves. Similar decisions are likely to play out across other categories over the course of the year, as Walmart steps up efforts to streamline brand assortments, often to the benefit of its fast-expanding Great Value brand and national brands that survive the vetting.

Less choice in retailers. Less choice in brands. I’ve been saying it for years: When they take all the corpses off the battlefield, Walmart is going to hike its prices like there is no tomorrow.

Some 20 years ago I was editor of a magazine that covered the automotive aftermarket and regularly talked to people at both Exide and Johnson Controls about shifts in the battery markets. Back then the, as I called them, Megachains were just emerging.

Nothing like today’s news, however, had yet been contemplated.

From 24/7 Wall Street:

Exide Technologies is getting crushed today after news that the company was notified by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that the retailer will stop selling the company’s auto batteries in WalMart stores. It would be the understatement of the year to note that when companies lose WalMart as one of their retail distributors, it hurts. But don’t bother telling that to Johnson Controls Inc. Johnson has just announced that it was selected as the sole source provider of its Automotive, Marine, Powersport and Lawn & Garden battery requirements for WalMart stores in the United States and Puerto Rico.

I wonder how many pennies (fraction of a penny) Johnston shaved off the cost to beat out Exide and how many of the battery jobs have crossed borders?

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

From Arkansas Business:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville will lay off 300 workers, “primarily” at its Bentonville headquarters, the company said in a memo to its employees (PDF) on Wednesday.

CEO Mike Duke said the cuts come primarily in corporate support areas.

The move comes as the world’s largest retailer seeks to “eliminate duplication, reduce costs, and shift work closer to the operating units.” The announcement also comes about a year after Wal-Mart cut more than 700 employees at its Bentonville and Rogers offices, another effort to increase operational efficiencies and cut costs.

“This was a difficult decision, but I believe that if we ask our operations to be leaner and more customer-focused, we must ask the same of our support teams at the Home Office,” Duke told employees in a memo released to news organizations.

While it is tempting to once again point out that Walmart is doing wonderfully, I’d rather ask how can an operation simultaneously be “leaner and more customer-focused?” Doesn’t customer service require more representatives rather than less?

How do you really feel about Walmart? Here’s your chance to express your true feelings — pro and con — about the world’s largest retailer. Write whatever you like in the comments section and engage your fellow readers in the conversation.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

I wrote earlier about Walmart’s announcement that it had agreed to a strategic alliance (don’t you just love the geopoliticalness of that phrase?) with Hong Kong based Li & Fung. More information is coming out as analysts consider the ramifications of the deal.

From Andrew White:

The intent is that Wal-Mart is moving closer to taking more direct control of its supplier relationships, and ultimately, the manufacturing supply resources that feeds its humongous business.

Given Wal-Mart’s size and reach this announcement has significant ramifications; short term impacts relate to those suppliers working, right now, to keep Wal-Mart shelves full; and long term, this move will put further stresses and strains on the relationship between Wal-Mart and its large suppliers. Consumer Goods suppliers and retailers share a tortuous relationship.

Even more tortuous may be the relationship between Walmart and the people who hold their noses while shopping there in a trashed economy.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

If you want to be rich, really, really rich in America, the first step is to marry into a wealthy family. Married niece of Sam Walton, check. Next you have to learn how to go on corporate welfare so that tax payers finance your personal wealth. Suckering Missouri taxpayers for $8 million, check. Clearly Enos Stanley Kroenke is a man who knows how business works.

From Al Norman:

In January of 2010, Kroenke’s group presented Bridgeton with a plan requiring as much as $8 million in Tax Increment Financing to build a Wal-Mart. According to Kroenke, the Wal-Mart project will generate roughly $7 million in sales and property taxes. But this welfare deal is not without its detractors. Officials in neighboring St. Ann are not pleased with the project. The “old” Wal-Mart initially was entirely within Bridgeton — but when Wal-Mart expanded its store, the footprint stepped across the line into St. Ann. Bridgeton’s gain will be St. Ann’s loss.

I guess in Kroenke’s world, it’s all about showing him the money.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

I have to admit that I don’t understand this whole corporate reorganization thing. But I have to wonder if Walmart’s Executive VP and COO thinks his employees are even more ignorant than I am. This is Bill Simon, from a letter to all associates I got from an internal Walmart source:

One exciting benefit to this new structure is the definition of effective career paths. We will be able to develop and grow our talent more quickly and provide opportunities throughout the organization. By reducing our Market Managers’ span of control, they will be able to focus on developing their Store Managers and to implement new productivity initiatives.

In most bureaucracies I know about, more middle managers are a bad thing. However, leaving that aside, how many people are we talking about? 500? 1000? How many people work for Walmart in the US alone? I rest my case.

How stupid does he think the associates are?

Our co-blogger Robert Feinman passed in July. Jonathan has already posted a best of series taken from Robert’s more than 600 posts to The Writing On The Wal. But Robert wrote elsewhere as well and, for some time, I’ve enjoyed a Sunday morning tradition of reading the essays he posted to his personal blog.

Beginning on 18 October I began to cross post Robert’s essays to share his thoughts. Strictly speaking, Walmart was not specifically the subject of Robert’s writings, but Walmart was certainly always a player in the universe he explored.

Standing in Line as a Civic Duty

John Edwards has spoken frequently of the “Two Americas” so what I’m about to say isn’t totally original. His focus has been on how much the “haves” have and how little the rest of us don’t.

I want to focus on what the haves have that the rest of us don’t.

In prior gilded ages what the rich had was opulence. There was the big estate, the servants, the jewels and antiques and the like. The rich had a private space where they lived and also a bit of a private space where they socialized – social and golf clubs most often.

In this gilded age they have all of this as well, but they have distorted social policy so that they get publicly subsidized benefits open only to them. I’ll cite two examples I’ve come across recently. Read the rest of this entry »

5,000 is a lot of posts for a blog, but we’ve made it! And no, I’m not talking about this pathetic post of mine, but Smiley reading the Great Dictator right below it. This one is 5,001.

I worked discount retail through high school and college and I moved a lot of heavy materials, most often lots of 32-pound cases of paint, on a regular basis. I managed to stay healthy and uninjured. The Las Vegas Badger isn’t quite so fortunate.

Today, I had to downstack over 9,000 pounds of groceries so the night shift can have an easier night.

But no, that is not what caused my injury.

While unloading a dairy and frozen food truck, the pallets were terribly wrapped and when I was pulling off some frozen food, some cases of food fell off the pallet, bounced off the electric pallet jack and hit quite hard on my calf, causing bruising. Then, because of a leak in some juice product, the floor of the truck was quite icy and I twisted my ankle sliding on the ice, making it swell up.

I do hope he’s got good health insurance.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

There are sound stages on Hollywood’s back lots smaller than Bentonvile’s behemoths, so it’s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring makemagazine.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

There is a management shake-up at Walmart with the creation of three regional fiefdoms in the United States, each with its own president and management structure. The presidents are: Raul Vazquez, West Rosalind Brewer, South; and Hank Mullany, North.

From Reuters:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is consolidating some U.S. operations and dividing the country into three regions under separate presidents to increase efficiency at more than 3,700 domestic stores.

The world’s biggest retailer is also creating a new division called Global.com to oversee its global e-commerce business.

Wal-Mart, which slashed prices online aggressively during the holiday season to gain market share and challenge Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), said on Thursday that Wan Ling Martello has been promoted to chief operating officer of Global.com. She was previously CFO of Walmart International.

Raul Vazquez, who was the CEO of Walmart.com U.S., is taking on a new role as president of Walmart West and the retailer said it will not fill his position.

What I think is the most important bit of information buried among all the announcement is this:

Wal-Mart, which is trying to retain the market share it gained during the downturn, has acknowledged a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works.

Creating independence among equal leaders of divisions is always a risky business strategy. It can result in great benefits from competition and creativity, but it risks groups going off-message. Walmart CEO Michael Duke continues to hold the reins, but will have a difficult time determining when to allow Vazquez, Brewer and Mullany their heads and when to cry whoa.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.