Questions
Seastrand Oil Company produces two grades of gasoline: regular and high octane. Both gasolines are produced...

Seastrand Oil Company produces two grades of gasoline: regular and high octane. Both gasolines are produced by blending two types of crude oil. Although both types of crude oil contain the two important ingredients required to produce both gasolines, the percentage of important ingredients in each type of crude oil differs, as does the cost per gallon. The percentage of ingredients A and B in each type of crude oil and the cost per gallon are shown.

Crude Oil   Cost   Ingredient A   Ingredient B
1   $0.10   20%   60%
2   $0.15   50%   30%
Each gallon of regular gasoline must contain at least 40% of ingredient A, whereas each gallon of high octane can contain at most 50% of ingredient B. Daily demand for regular and high-octane gasoline is 900,000 and 700,000 gallons, respectively. How many gallons of each type of crude oil should be used in the two gasolines to satisfy daily demand at a minimum cost? Round your answers to the nearest whole number. Round the answers for cost to the nearest dollar.

gallons of crude 1 used to produce regular   =  
gallons of crude 1 used to produce high-octane   =  
gallons of crude 2 used to produce regular   =  
gallons of crude 2 used to produce high-octane   =  
Cost   =   $

In: Economics

Exercise 4A-9 Equivalent Units; Equivalent Units of Production; Assigning Costs-FIFO Method [LO4-6, LO4-7, LO4-8] Jarvene Corporation...

Exercise 4A-9 Equivalent Units; Equivalent Units of Production; Assigning Costs-FIFO Method [LO4-6, LO4-7, LO4-8]

Jarvene Corporation uses the FIFO method in its process costing system. The following data are for the most recent month of operations in one of the company’s processing departments:

Units in beginning inventory 350
Units started into production 4,250
Units in ending inventory 330
Units transferred to the next department 4,270
Materials Conversion
Percentage completion of beginning inventory 70 % 30 %
Percentage completion of ending inventory 80 % 30 %

The cost of beginning inventory according to the company’s costing system was $7,831 of which $4,849 was for materials and the remainder was for conversion cost. The costs added during the month amounted to $175,274. The costs per equivalent unit for the month were:

Materials Conversion
Cost per equivalent unit $18.00 $23.00

Required:

1. Compute the total cost per equivalent unit for the month.

2. Compute the equivalent units of material and conversion in the ending inventory.

3. Compute the equivalent units of material and conversion that were required to complete the beginning inventory.

4. Compute the number of units started and completed during the month.

5. Compute the cost of ending work in process inventory for materials, conversion, and in total for the month.

6. Compute the cost of the units transferred to the next department for materials, conversion, and in total for the month.

In: Accounting

[The following information applies to the questions displayed below.] Raleigh Department Store uses the conventional retail...

[The following information applies to the questions displayed below.]

Raleigh Department Store uses the conventional retail method for the year ended December 31, 2019. Available information follows:

  1. The inventory at January 1, 2019, had a retail value of $45,000 and a cost of $27,500 based on the conventional retail method.
  2. Transactions during 2019 were as follows:
Cost Retail
Gross purchases $ 282,000 $ 490,000
Purchase returns 6,500 10,000
Purchase discounts 5,000
Sales 492,000
Sales returns 5,000
Employee discounts 3,000
Freight-in 26,500
Net markups 25,000
Net markdowns 10,000


Sales to employees are recorded net of discounts.

  1. The retail value of the December 31, 2020, inventory was $56,100, the cost-to-retail percentage for 2020 under the LIFO retail method was 62%, and the appropriate price index was 102% of the January 1, 2020, price level.
  2. The retail value of the December 31, 2021, inventory was $48,300, the cost-to-retail percentage for 2021 under the LIFO retail method was 61%, and the appropriate price index was 105% of the January 1, 2020, price level.

Required:
3.
Assume Raleigh Department Store adopts the dollar-value LIFO retail method on January 1, 2020. Estimate ending inventory for 2020 and 2021.


Total ending inventory at dollar-value LIFO retail cost, 2021 = ?

Total ending inventory at dollar-value LIFO retail cost, 2020 = ?

In: Accounting

ANSWER ALL PARTS. DO NOT SKIP ANY PART. ATTEMPT ONLY IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN EACH PART...

ANSWER ALL PARTS. DO NOT SKIP ANY PART. ATTEMPT ONLY IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN EACH PART STEP BY STEP

Jarvene Corporation uses the FIFO method in its process costing system. The following data are for the most recent month of operations in one of the company’s processing departments:




Units in beginning inventory 390
Units started into production 4,290
Units in ending inventory 340
Units transferred to the next department 4,340


Materials Conversion
Percentage completion of beginning inventory 80 % 20 %
Percentage completion of ending inventory 70 % 30 %


The cost of beginning inventory according to the company’s costing system was $7,833 of which $4,865 was for materials and the remainder was for conversion cost. The costs added during the month amounted to $177,160. The costs per equivalent unit for the month were:



Materials Conversion
Cost per equivalent unit $18.00 $23.00


Required:

1. Compute the total cost per equivalent unit for the month.

2. Compute the equivalent units of material and conversion in the ending inventory.

3. Compute the equivalent units of material and conversion that were required to complete the beginning inventory.

4. Compute the number of units started and completed during the month.

5. Compute the cost of ending work in process inventory for materials, conversion, and in total for the month.

6. Compute the cost of the units transferred to the next department for materials, conversion, and in total for the month.

In: Accounting

Karen’s Restaurant has three sales revenue departments with direct costs and average monthly figures given in...

Karen’s Restaurant has three sales revenue departments with direct costs and average monthly figures given in the following information:

Departments

Dining

Banquets

Beverages

Sales revenue

$306,000

$165,000

$138,000

Cost of sales

$122,400

$62,700

$44,160

Wages and salaries cost

$97,920

$52,800

$19,320

Other direct costs

$27,540

$13,200

$2,760

The restaurant also has the following indirect, undistributed costs:

Administrative and general expenses       $18,000

Marketing expenses               $15,000

Utilities expense                   $ 7,500

Property operation and maintenance       $18,180

Depreciation expense               $21,000

Insurance expense               $ 6,000

Required:

Prepare a consolidated departmental contributory income statement showing each of the three divisions side by side for comparison. Do not allocate indirect costs.

Allocate the indirect costs to the divisions side by side for comparison. Administrative, general, and marketing costs are allocated based on sales revenue. The remaining indirect costs are allocated based on square footage used by each division: Round all percentage calculations to a whole percentage.

Dining 3,600 sq. ft.   Banquet 4,500 sq. ft.   Beverage 900 sq. ft.

After allocating the indirect costs, would you consider closing any of the divisions? Why or why not?

Calculate the contributory income percentage for each of the three divisions.

Calculate the cost of sales, wages and salaries costs, and other direct costs as a percentage of sales revenue for each of the divisions.

If there were a shift of $12,000 in sales revenue from the banquet area to the dining room, would you expect the restaurant’s overall operating income to increase or decrease? Explain your reasoning to support your answer.

Assuming that the shift of $12,000 of sales revenue does occur, total sales revenue will not change. Total indirect, undistributed costs will not change. Recalculate cost of sales, wages and salaries costs, and other direct costs for each division (using the percentages in 5 above) to find the new departmental operating income.

After allocating the indirect costs, would you now consider closing any of the divisions? Why or why not?

In: Accounting

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union...

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union won and is now bargaining for a contract.

As a local union leader developing a strike contingency plan, what particular concerns should you have in each scenario?

ACME AUTO PARTS Acme Auto Parts is a small nonunion manufacturer of auto parts located in a small town in the South. The work is repetitive and routine. There are no particular skill or educational requirements for the production employees. Acme sells nearly all its parts to the Big Three automakers (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) according to the specifications they provide. The highly unionized Big Three have largely outsourced the manufacturing of parts. Many of their traditional parts suppliers have closed their unionized operations in Michigan and opened nonunion plants in the South and in Mexico. The Big Three, however, continue to face competitive cost pressures from the Japanese car companies and therefore are continually trying to wring cost concessions from their suppliers. The parts workers at various companies that are still represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) face demands for concessions during every contract negotiation. The UAW is therefore trying to organize the nonunion parts factories. You have seen UAW organizers in town trying to contact Acme workers for the past few weeks. This morning you overheard two workers talking about the UAW.

THE ZINNIA The Zinnia is a 300-room hotel in the central business district of a major Midwestern metropolitan area. This is a full-service hotel—a hotel providing a wide variety of services including food and beverage facilities and meeting rooms—that caters to individual business travelers, convention attendees, and local businesspeople who need meeting space. The Zinnia emphasizes outstanding service and amenities and is owned by a prominent local real estate magnate, Ms. Lucy Baldercash, who closely monitors the management and financial performance of her diversified properties. Many of this city’s major hotels are unionized, and the Zinnia’s wage rates are equal to the local union wage scale. You feel that while the Zinnia’s employee benefit package is modest compared to what the union has been able to extract from your unionized competitors, it is competitive with other low-skilled occupations in the area—and is particularly generous for the undocumented immigrants that you have quietly hired to fill the dishwashing and room cleaning positions. You also feel that your unionized competitors are saddled with myriad work rules that restrict flexibility. The local union organizes aggressively and isn’t afraid to have public marches and demonstrations in support of its goal of social justice. But you thought your workers were content, and you were astonished to learn this morning that Zinnia workers have been quietly signing authorization cards. You received notice from the NLRB that a petition was filed by the local hotel union requesting an election covering back-of-the-house workers (kitchen, laundry, and room cleaning employees—not front-of-the-house employees like bellhops, bartenders, and waitresses) and that this petition was supported by signed authorization cards from 40 percent of the workers.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 273 School District 273 is a medium-sized public school district in a Northeastern state with a comprehensive bargaining law that includes teachers. The bargaining law allows strikes (except for police, firefighters, and prison guards) and also allows unions to be recognized through a card check recognition procedure if the employer does not object. Otherwise a representation election will be conducted when a petition is supported by 30 percent signed authorization cards. No employees in District 273 are represented by a union, though teachers in many neighboring districts are. District 273 receives 75 percent of its funding from the state based on a statewide per-student funding formula; the remainder comes from local property taxes and fees. To balance the state budget, school funding was reduced by 10 percent. School budgets are also being squeezed by rising health care costs. And teachers are frustrated by the state’s emphasis on standardized test scores; they feel they are losing control over educational standards and curriculum. A grassroots unionization effort started among some teachers at the district’s high school near the beginning of the school year. It is now the middle of the school year, and the leaders of this grassroots effort—which they are now calling the District 273 Teacher’s Association—claim to have signed authorization cards from 70 percent of the teachers, including large numbers at all the district’s schools. They have asked the school board to voluntarily recognize their union and schedule bargaining sessions to hear their concerns and negotiate a contract that preserves teachers’ input into the educational process.

WOODVILLE HEALTHCARE Woodville HealthCare is a for-profit health care provider formed through the merger of several networks of physicians. It operates 50 managed care clinics and employs 400 doctors in the West. The merger has resulted in a Page 228major restructuring of operations. Several clinics have been closed, and a number of new operating guidelines have been implemented. Doctors are now required to see more patients; specialty medical procedures and nongeneric prescriptions must be approved by the medical authorization department; and expensive procedures can negatively affect a doctor’s salary. Some doctors contacted a national doctors’ union that is affiliated with one of the largest U.S. unions, and an organizing drive was launched. After a petition was filed with the NLRB, Woodville filed objections and argued that the doctors were supervisors and therefore excluded from the NLRA. The NLRB eventually ruled that 100 of the doctors had supervisory responsibilities, but that 300 were nonmanagerial doctors. Woodville then spent $300,000 (plus staff time) on an antiunion campaign leading up to last week’s election for the 300 nonmanagerial doctors. The election results were 142 voting in favor of the union, 128 against. This is a slim seven-vote margin, and you have until tomorrow to decide whether to appeal the results of the election by filing objections with the NLRB. Several days before the election, the union’s website reported salary figures for Woodville’s top executives that were grossly inflated. You have also investigated several allegations of inappropriate union campaigning on the day of the election but have uncovered only weak evidence. Your attorney predicts that there is a 20 percent chance an appeal would succeed.

In: Operations Management

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union...

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union won and is now bargaining for a contract.

As an HR manager developing a strike contingency plan, what particular concerns should you have in each scenario?

ACME AUTO PARTS Acme Auto Parts is a small nonunion manufacturer of auto parts located in a small town in the South. The work is repetitive and routine. There are no particular skill or educational requirements for the production employees. Acme sells nearly all its parts to the Big Three automakers (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) according to the specifications they provide. The highly unionized Big Three have largely outsourced the manufacturing of parts. Many of their traditional parts suppliers have closed their unionized operations in Michigan and opened nonunion plants in the South and in Mexico. The Big Three, however, continue to face competitive cost pressures from the Japanese car companies and therefore are continually trying to wring cost concessions from their suppliers. The parts workers at various companies that are still represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) face demands for concessions during every contract negotiation. The UAW is therefore trying to organize the nonunion parts factories. You have seen UAW organizers in town trying to contact Acme workers for the past few weeks. This morning you overheard two workers talking about the UAW. THE ZINNIA The Zinnia is a 300-room hotel in the central business district of a major Midwestern metropolitan area. This is a full-service hotel—a hotel providing a wide variety of services including food and beverage facilities and meeting rooms—that caters to individual business travelers, convention attendees, and local businesspeople who need meeting space. The Zinnia emphasizes outstanding service and amenities and is owned by a prominent local real estate magnate, Ms. Lucy Baldercash, who closely monitors the management and financial performance of her diversified properties. Many of this city’s major hotels are unionized, and the Zinnia’s wage rates are equal to the local union wage scale. You feel that while the Zinnia’s employee benefit package is modest compared to what the union has been able to extract from your unionized competitors, it is competitive with other low-skilled occupations in the area—and is particularly generous for the undocumented immigrants that you have quietly hired to fill the dishwashing and room cleaning positions. You also feel that your unionized competitors are saddled with myriad work rules that restrict flexibility. The local union organizes aggressively and isn’t afraid to have public marches and demonstrations in support of its goal of social justice. But you thought your workers were content, and you were astonished to learn this morning that Zinnia workers have been quietly signing authorization cards. You received notice from the NLRB that a petition was filed by the local hotel union requesting an election covering back-of-the-house workers (kitchen, laundry, and room cleaning employees—not front-of-the-house employees like bellhops, bartenders, and waitresses) and that this petition was supported by signed authorization cards from 40 percent of the workers. SCHOOL DISTRICT 273 School District 273 is a medium-sized public school district in a Northeastern state with a comprehensive bargaining law that includes teachers. The bargaining law allows strikes (except for police, firefighters, and prison guards) and also allows unions to be recognized through a card check recognition procedure if the employer does not object. Otherwise a representation election will be conducted when a petition is supported by 30 percent signed authorization cards. No employees in District 273 are represented by a union, though teachers in many neighboring districts are. District 273 receives 75 percent of its funding from the state based on a statewide per-student funding formula; the remainder comes from local property taxes and fees. To balance the state budget, school funding was reduced by 10 percent. School budgets are also being squeezed by rising health care costs. And teachers are frustrated by the state’s emphasis on standardized test scores; they feel they are losing control over educational standards and curriculum. A grassroots unionization effort started among some teachers at the district’s high school near the beginning of the school year. It is now the middle of the school year, and the leaders of this grassroots effort—which they are now calling the District 273 Teacher’s Association—claim to have signed authorization cards from 70 percent of the teachers, including large numbers at all the district’s schools. They have asked the school board to voluntarily recognize their union and schedule bargaining sessions to hear their concerns and negotiate a contract that preserves teachers’ input into the educational process. WOODVILLE HEALTHCARE Woodville HealthCare is a for-profit health care provider formed through the merger of several networks of physicians. It operates 50 managed care clinics and employs 400 doctors in the West. The merger has resulted in a Page 228major restructuring of operations. Several clinics have been closed, and a number of new operating guidelines have been implemented. Doctors are now required to see more patients; specialty medical procedures and nongeneric prescriptions must be approved by the medical authorization department; and expensive procedures can negatively affect a doctor’s salary. Some doctors contacted a national doctors’ union that is affiliated with one of the largest U.S. unions, and an organizing drive was launched. After a petition was filed with the NLRB, Woodville filed objections and argued that the doctors were supervisors and therefore excluded from the NLRA. The NLRB eventually ruled that 100 of the doctors had supervisory responsibilities, but that 300 were nonmanagerial doctors. Woodville then spent $300,000 (plus staff time) on an antiunion campaign leading up to last week’s election for the 300 nonmanagerial doctors. The election results were 142 voting in favor of the union, 128 against. This is a slim seven-vote margin, and you have until tomorrow to decide whether to appeal the results of the election by filing objections with the NLRB. Several days before the election, the union’s website reported salary figures for Woodville’s top executives that were grossly inflated. You have also investigated several allegations of inappropriate union campaigning on the day of the election but have uncovered only weak evidence. Your attorney predicts that there is a 20 percent chance an appeal would succeed.

In: Operations Management

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union...

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union won and is now bargaining for a contract.

As an HR manager developing a strike contingency plan, what particular concerns should you have in each scenario?

ACME AUTO PARTS Acme Auto Parts is a small nonunion manufacturer of auto parts located in a small town in the South. The work is repetitive and routine. There are no particular skill or educational requirements for the production employees. Acme sells nearly all its parts to the Big Three automakers (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) according to the specifications they provide. The highly unionized Big Three have largely outsourced the manufacturing of parts. Many of their traditional parts suppliers have closed their unionized operations in Michigan and opened nonunion plants in the South and in Mexico. The Big Three, however, continue to face competitive cost pressures from the Japanese car companies and therefore are continually trying to wring cost concessions from their suppliers. The parts workers at various companies that are still represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) face demands for concessions during every contract negotiation. The UAW is therefore trying to organize the nonunion parts factories. You have seen UAW organizers in town trying to contact Acme workers for the past few weeks. This morning you overheard two workers talking about the UAW.

THE ZINNIA The Zinnia is a 300-room hotel in the central business district of a major Midwestern metropolitan area. This is a full-service hotel—a hotel providing a wide variety of services including food and beverage facilities and meeting rooms—that caters to individual business travelers, convention attendees, and local businesspeople who need meeting space. The Zinnia emphasizes outstanding service and amenities and is owned by a prominent local real estate magnate, Ms. Lucy Baldercash, who closely monitors the management and financial performance of her diversified properties. Many of this city’s major hotels are unionized, and the Zinnia’s wage rates are equal to the local union wage scale. You feel that while the Zinnia’s employee benefit package is modest compared to what the union has been able to extract from your unionized competitors, it is competitive with other low-skilled occupations in the area—and is particularly generous for the undocumented immigrants that you have quietly hired to fill the dishwashing and room cleaning positions. You also feel that your unionized competitors are saddled with myriad work rules that restrict flexibility. The local union organizes aggressively and isn’t afraid to have public marches and demonstrations in support of its goal of social justice. But you thought your workers were content, and you were astonished to learn this morning that Zinnia workers have been quietly signing authorization cards. You received notice from the NLRB that a petition was filed by the local hotel union requesting an election covering back-of-the-house workers (kitchen, laundry, and room cleaning employees—not front-of-the-house employees like bellhops, bartenders, and waitresses) and that this petition was supported by signed authorization cards from 40 percent of the workers.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 273 School District 273 is a medium-sized public school district in a Northeastern state with a comprehensive bargaining law that includes teachers. The bargaining law allows strikes (except for police, firefighters, and prison guards) and also allows unions to be recognized through a card check recognition procedure if the employer does not object. Otherwise a representation election will be conducted when a petition is supported by 30 percent signed authorization cards. No employees in District 273 are represented by a union, though teachers in many neighboring districts are. District 273 receives 75 percent of its funding from the state based on a statewide per-student funding formula; the remainder comes from local property taxes and fees. To balance the state budget, school funding was reduced by 10 percent. School budgets are also being squeezed by rising health care costs. And teachers are frustrated by the state’s emphasis on standardized test scores; they feel they are losing control over educational standards and curriculum. A grassroots unionization effort started among some teachers at the district’s high school near the beginning of the school year. It is now the middle of the school year, and the leaders of this grassroots effort—which they are now calling the District 273 Teacher’s Association—claim to have signed authorization cards from 70 percent of the teachers, including large numbers at all the district’s schools. They have asked the school board to voluntarily recognize their union and schedule bargaining sessions to hear their concerns and negotiate a contract that preserves teachers’ input into the educational process.

WOODVILLE HEALTHCARE Woodville HealthCare is a for-profit health care provider formed through the merger of several networks of physicians. It operates 50 managed care clinics and employs 400 doctors in the West. The merger has resulted in a Page 228major restructuring of operations. Several clinics have been closed, and a number of new operating guidelines have been implemented. Doctors are now required to see more patients; specialty medical procedures and nongeneric prescriptions must be approved by the medical authorization department; and expensive procedures can negatively affect a doctor’s salary. Some doctors contacted a national doctors’ union that is affiliated with one of the largest U.S. unions, and an organizing drive was launched. After a petition was filed with the NLRB, Woodville filed objections and argued that the doctors were supervisors and therefore excluded from the NLRA. The NLRB eventually ruled that 100 of the doctors had supervisory responsibilities, but that 300 were nonmanagerial doctors. Woodville then spent $300,000 (plus staff time) on an antiunion campaign leading up to last week’s election for the 300 nonmanagerial doctors. The election results were 142 voting in favor of the union, 128 against. This is a slim seven-vote margin, and you have until tomorrow to decide whether to appeal the results of the election by filing objections with the NLRB. Several days before the election, the union’s website reported salary figures for Woodville’s top executives that were grossly inflated. You have also investigated several allegations of inappropriate union campaigning on the day of the election but have uncovered only weak evidence. Your attorney predicts that there is a 20 percent chance an appeal would succeed.

In: Operations Management

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union...

For each scenarios below "hr strategy: responding to a union organizing drive, assume that the union won and is now bargaining for a contract. As a local union leader developing a strike contingency plan, what particular concerns should you have in each scenario?

ACME AUTO PARTS Acme Auto Parts is a small nonunion manufacturer of auto parts located in a small town in the South. The work is repetitive and routine. There are no particular skill or educational requirements for the production employees. Acme sells nearly all its parts to the Big Three automakers (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) according to the specifications they provide. The highly unionized Big Three have largely outsourced the manufacturing of parts. Many of their traditional parts suppliers have closed their unionized operations in Michigan and opened nonunion plants in the South and in Mexico. The Big Three, however, continue to face competitive cost pressures from the Japanese car companies and therefore are continually trying to wring cost concessions from their suppliers. The parts workers at various companies that are still represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) face demands for concessions during every contract negotiation. The UAW is therefore trying to organize the nonunion parts factories. You have seen UAW organizers in town trying to contact Acme workers for the past few weeks. This morning you overheard two workers talking about the UAW.

THE ZINNIA The Zinnia is a 300-room hotel in the central business district of a major Midwestern metropolitan area. This is a full-service hotel—a hotel providing a wide variety of services including food and beverage facilities and meeting rooms—that caters to individual business travelers, convention attendees, and local businesspeople who need meeting space. The Zinnia emphasizes outstanding service and amenities and is owned by a prominent local real estate magnate, Ms. Lucy Baldercash, who closely monitors the management and financial performance of her diversified properties. Many of this city’s major hotels are unionized, and the Zinnia’s wage rates are equal to the local union wage scale. You feel that while the Zinnia’s employee benefit package is modest compared to what the union has been able to extract from your unionized competitors, it is competitive with other low-skilled occupations in the area—and is particularly generous for the undocumented immigrants that you have quietly hired to fill the dishwashing and room cleaning positions. You also feel that your unionized competitors are saddled with myriad work rules that restrict flexibility. The local union organizes aggressively and isn’t afraid to have public marches and demonstrations in support of its goal of social justice. But you thought your workers were content, and you were astonished to learn this morning that Zinnia workers have been quietly signing authorization cards. You received notice from the NLRB that a petition was filed by the local hotel union requesting an election covering back-of-the-house workers (kitchen, laundry, and room cleaning employees—not front-of-the-house employees like bellhops, bartenders, and waitresses) and that this petition was supported by signed authorization cards from 40 percent of the workers.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 273 School District 273 is a medium-sized public school district in a Northeastern state with a comprehensive bargaining law that includes teachers. The bargaining law allows strikes (except for police, firefighters, and prison guards) and also allows unions to be recognized through a card check recognition procedure if the employer does not object. Otherwise a representation election will be conducted when a petition is supported by 30 percent signed authorization cards. No employees in District 273 are represented by a union, though teachers in many neighboring districts are. District 273 receives 75 percent of its funding from the state based on a statewide per-student funding formula; the remainder comes from local property taxes and fees. To balance the state budget, school funding was reduced by 10 percent. School budgets are also being squeezed by rising health care costs. And teachers are frustrated by the state’s emphasis on standardized test scores; they feel they are losing control over educational standards and curriculum. A grassroots unionization effort started among some teachers at the district’s high school near the beginning of the school year. It is now the middle of the school year, and the leaders of this grassroots effort—which they are now calling the District 273 Teacher’s Association—claim to have signed authorization cards from 70 percent of the teachers, including large numbers at all the district’s schools. They have asked the school board to voluntarily recognize their union and schedule bargaining sessions to hear their concerns and negotiate a contract that preserves teachers’ input into the educational process.

WOODVILLE HEALTHCARE Woodville HealthCare is a for-profit health care provider formed through the merger of several networks of physicians. It operates 50 managed care clinics and employs 400 doctors in the West. The merger has resulted in a Page 228major restructuring of operations. Several clinics have been closed, and a number of new operating guidelines have been implemented. Doctors are now required to see more patients; specialty medical procedures and nongeneric prescriptions must be approved by the medical authorization department; and expensive procedures can negatively affect a doctor’s salary. Some doctors contacted a national doctors’ union that is affiliated with one of the largest U.S. unions, and an organizing drive was launched. After a petition was filed with the NLRB, Woodville filed objections and argued that the doctors were supervisors and therefore excluded from the NLRA. The NLRB eventually ruled that 100 of the doctors had supervisory responsibilities, but that 300 were nonmanagerial doctors. Woodville then spent $300,000 (plus staff time) on an antiunion campaign leading up to last week’s election for the 300 nonmanagerial doctors. The election results were 142 voting in favor of the union, 128 against. This is a slim seven-vote margin, and you have until tomorrow to decide whether to appeal the results of the election by filing objections with the NLRB. Several days before the election, the union’s website reported salary figures for Woodville’s top executives that were grossly inflated. You have also investigated several allegations of inappropriate union campaigning on the day of the election but have uncovered only weak evidence. Your attorney predicts that there is a 20 percent chance an appeal would succeed.

In: Operations Management

Jack's Construction Co. has 80 bonds outstanding that are selling at their par value of $1,000 ea...

Jack's Construction Co. has 80 bonds outstanding that are selling at their par value of $1,000 each. Bonds with similar characteristics are yielding a pretax 8.6 percent. The firm also has 4,000 shares of common stock outstanding. The stock has a beta of 1.1 and sells for $40 a share. The U.S. T-bill is yielding 4 percent, the market risk premium is 8 percent, and the firm's tax rate is 21 percent. What is the firm's weighted average cost of capital assuming its earnings are sufficient to classify all interest as a tax-deductible expense? What does this WACC mean?

In: Finance