HUNDREDS of employees and trainees of a Shenzhen English training center jammed into its office in Futian in protest Saturday, two days after it abruptly closed.
A total of 41 employees of Linguaphone Shenzhen — including four foreign teachers — claimed the company owed them a total of 400,000 yuan (US$58,800) in salaries for the past two months, while most students wanted their money back because they had just paid for summer memberships before the closure. The center had enrolled more than 400 students for summer classes, involving a total payment of 4 million yuan.
The center also owed 70,000 yuan in office management fees and the management company sent security guards to the office to prevent equipment from being removed, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
The owner, Li Qitai, was in the United States and could not be reached by phone, the report said.
The employees didn’t know the center was closing until they saw a sign posted outside the building at the World Trade Plaza, stating that the center would close from Aug. 1 to 17 “for interior decoration.”
“We became suspicious because we were not paid in June or July,” an employee surnamed Ma said. “We hadn’t seen the boss for a long time and we thought it was facing closure.”
Li’s lawyer, Zou Zongcheng, who was negotiating with the employees and students, denied Li had fled.
“Li has spent nearly 10 million yuan running the center in the past two years. He is now financially-strapped,” he said. “He is looking for investors.”
He confirmed that Linguaphone Shenzhen, which opened in June in 2007, had been operating illegally because it was registered under the name of Tuguan Information Consultancy Shenzhen Co. Ltd. and was not authorized to provide language training.
He promised the company would provide answers to the staff and students in two weeks.
A senior officer from Linguaphone China, surnamed Zhang, said his company was not obliged to pay the debt that Linguaphone Shenzhen had incurred as a franchise.
But he promised he could help organize lessons at other centers for students who wanted to continue their studies.
Some students had reported the matter to Futian police, accusing the training center of a swindle, but the accusation was rejected for lack of evidence.
Linguaphone, a leading language training provider, was established in the U.K. in 1901. Linguaphone China has a growing network of centers throughout the country, most notably Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Shanghai, Jinan and Zhengzhou.(Vivian Li)