Chattanooga gas prices drop to 39 cents a gallon below the U.S. average and more business news

Dec. 20—Chattanooga gas prices drop another 3.4 cents

Chattanooga gas prices fell another 3.4 cents per gallon in the past week, continuing a 2-month-long decline from the 7-year highs reached in October.

The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Chattanooga declined Monday to an average of $2.91 a gallon, or 14.6 cents a gallon below the price a month ago, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 stations in Chattanooga. Gas prices in Chattanooga average 39 cents a gallon below the U.S. average of $3.30 per gallon, Gasbuddy.com surveys found.

According to GasBuddy price reports, the cheapest station in Chattanooga was priced Monday at $2.67 per gallon at the Sam's Club on Lee Highway.

"For yet another week, average gasoline prices continue to fall as omicron cases surge, leading oil demand, and thus oil prices, to stall," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. "The decline in gas prices will likely continue until new Covid cases slow down."

De Haan said the U.S. average price of gas on Christmas set a record high of $3.26 a gallon in 2013 and should be slightly below that level by the end of the week.

"Beyond Christmas, with omicron cases likely to continue climbing, I do believe we'll see a more noticeable hit on gasoline demand once the holidays are over," he said.

Starbucks to bargain with New York union

Starbucks on Monday said that it intended to bargain "in good faith" with a store in Buffalo, New York, where employees voted to unionize this month following a sometimes contentious election campaign.

The store is the only one of roughly 9,000 company-owned U.S. locations to have a union, although many locations owned and operated by other companies under licensing agreements with Starbucks have unions.

"From the beginning, we've been clear in our belief that we do not want a union between us as partners, and that conviction has not changed," Rossann Williams, the company's president of retail for North America, said in a letter to U.S. employees Monday. "However, we have also said that we respect the legal process. This means we will bargain in good faith with the union that represents partners in the one Buffalo store that voted in favor of union representation."

Throughout the campaign in Buffalo, which began in late August, union supporters complained that out-of-town officials who converged on their stores, including Williams, were monitoring and intimidating them. The company said the officials had come to Buffalo to help solve issues like understaffing and inadequate training, and that it had taken similar steps around the country since the spring.

But following the announcement of the results of elections at three Buffalo-area stores Dec. 9, in which the union won in one store, lost in one and was leading in a third store where vote challenges must still be resolved, the union indicated it wanted to take a more conciliatory posture.

Oracle buys Cerner for $28.3 billion

Software maker Oracle is buying electronic medical records company Cerner in an all-cash deal valued at about $28.3 billion.

Oracle will pay $95 per Cerner share and the deal is expected to close next year.

Hospitals and physicians offices use Cerner software to record and share health and medical data. The companies said Monday that Cerner systems running on the Oracle Gen2 Cloud will be available 24 hours a day, every day, with the goal of having zero unplanned downtime.

Cerner, based in Kansas City, Missouri, will become a unit of Oracle.

Nike runs ahead of profit prediction

Nike Inc. on Monday reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $1.34 billion.

On a per-share basis, the Beaverton, Oregon-based company said it had net income of 83 cents.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 63 cents per share.

The athletic apparel maker posted revenue of $11.36 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Nine analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $11.22 billion.