One of Volkswagen’s biggest shareholders is urging the company to reduce the influence of trade unions on the car maker and to promote more electric vehicles in the United States, according to media reports.
Reuters said Qatar Investment Authority, the third-largest shareholder in Volkswagen, is urging the German car maker to reduce the role of the works councils, the joint labor and management committees that help develop work rules and practices in the more than 60 VW production plants around the world.
Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant does not have a works council, although maintenance and skilled workers at the Chattanooga plant voted 108-44 last week to join the United Auto Workers union, in part, to help get a works council in Chattanooga and a seat on VW’s global works council.
As Volkswagen struggles to cut costs to cope with charges that it cheated on emissions tests on its diesel engines, VW CEO Matthias Muller and other top leaders of Volkswagen met Sunday with officials of the Qatar Investment Authority, which reportedly owns 17 percent of VW.
Chattanooga Volkswagen plant“This is a normal introduction visit by the new management to one of the company’s most important partners, one of the most important shareholders,” VW spokesman Eric Felber said.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that Qatar is pushing for “sweeping changes” in the way Volkswagen is managed.
Shares of Volkswagen have declined by more than 25 percent since the emissions deception was first reported Sept. 18, reducing the value of Qatar’s investment in the company by billions of dollars.
Mueller has said Volkswagen will have to make massive cuts to meet a bill which analysts say could top $44 billion for fines, lawsuits and vehicle refits, Reuters said.
The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, without citing sources, said the Qatar used the meeting on Sunday to demand a scaling back of the influence of the worker representatives on the company board.
Qatar and the VW works council declined comment. Felber told the Wall Street Journal the meeting was not about labor issues.
“Neither the works council nor co-determination are on the agenda,” he said.
The works council, whose representatives hold as many seats on the company’s 20-member supervisory board as shareholders, has long wielded a great influence at the car maker and has headed off cost cuts in the past, Reuters reported today.
The Qatar meeting came just two days after the UAW gained its first major entry into a foreign-owned auto assembly plant in the South with a vote by part of the VW workers in Chattanooga to unionize the plant. Unlike a previous unsuccessful election by the UAW in Chattanooga among all VW hourly workers, the company is objecting to the latest union vote by only part of the production staff.
The Qatar Investment Authority, which has two seats on the supervisory board that hires and fires executives, also reportedly is pushing Volkswagen to begin a a multi-billion campaign to promote electric vehicles in the United States to regain ground in the world’s second-biggest auto market, Bild am Sonntag reported Sunday.