Foreign director fires Vietnamese workers with ‘scissors by the neck’ image

The Trade Union of Hai Phong Economic Zone requires the director of precision machinery manufacturer Iiyama Seiki Vietnam to make a formal apology within Tuesday to two former employees Trinh Quang Vinh and Nguyen Van Thuan.

Vinh and Thuan submitted their letters of resignation to the company leaders on Sept. 23 and were approved the same day.

But the director, who was not named in Hai Phong authorities’ press release, wrote a message that he stuck on the company’s bulletin board with an attached picture showing a hand holding a pair of scissors ready to cut off a man’s head.

The message read that these employees had “very poor labor skills, no prospects of improvement; [and they] did not fulfill their duties as required by labor regulations.”

Many offended employees filed a report to the company’s labor union chairman.

They also claimed that the foreign director often entered the staff rooms to take pictures and upload on internal chat groups without permission.

The workers called these acts “oppressions” that do not align with Vietnamese law.

Hai Phong trade union officials, after meeting for three hours with the company leaders and two workers, said the former did not comply with labor regulations by sticking up the notice after giving both employees permission to quit.

The obscene image was against the law and caused anger among workers, they said, adding the company director had violated regulations by entering the staff room without permission.

Labor authorities have required Iiyama Seiki Vietnam to call a company meeting to address the issue by Sept. 30.

The company must set up a task force to supervise its leaders’ actions to protect workers, they added.

Iiyama Seiki Vietnam was founded in 2012 and has 85 employees, according to the mother company’s website.