Qatar Wants Less Labor Influence at Volkswagen, Maybe

According to a report by Bild am Sonntag (via Reuters), Volkswagen’s third largest shareholder, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), wants trade unions to have less influence in what happens at the automaker amid Volkswagen’s ongoing emissions scandal.

QIA, which owns 17 percent of Volkswagen, is said to use a meeting scheduled today with automaker CEO Matthias Müller to “demand a scaling back of the role of the works council,” reported Reuters.

Volkswagen representatives denied the report, stating, “Co-determination (joint decision-making by corporate and labor representatives) and the (role of the) works council were not on the agenda of the talks.”

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  • Joe65688619 My last new car was a 2020 Acura RDX. Left it parked in the Florida sun for a few hours with the windows up the first day I had it, and was literally coughing and hacking on the offgassing. No doubt there is a problem here, but are there regs for the makeup of the interiors? The article notes that that "shockingly"...it's only shocking to me if they are not supposed to be there to begin with.
  • MaintenanceCosts "GLX" with the 2.slow? I'm confused. I thought that during the Mk3 and Mk4 era "GLX" meant the car had a VR6.
  • Dr.Nick What about Infiniti? Some of those cars might be interesting, whereas not much at Nissan interest me other than the Z which is probably big bucks.
  • Dave Holzman My '08 Civic (stick, 159k on the clock) is my favorite car that I've ever owned. If I had to choose between the current Civic and Corolla, I'd test drive 'em (with stick), and see how they felt. But I'd be approaching this choice partial to the Civic. I would not want any sort of automatic transmission, or the turbo engine.
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