Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the world’s largest advanced computer chip manufacturers, continues finding its efforts to get its Arizona facility up and running to be more difficult than it anticipated. The chip maker’s 5nm wafer fab was supposed to go online in 2024 but has faced numerous setbacks and now isn’t expected to begin production until 2025. The trouble the semiconductor has been facing boils down to a key difference between Taiwan and the U.S.: workplace culture. A New York Times report highlights the continuing struggle.
One big problem is that TSMC has been trying to do things the Taiwanese way, even in the U.S. In Taiwan, TSMC is known for extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.
TSMC quickly learned that such practices won’t work in the U.S. Recent reports indicated that the company’s labor force in Arizona is leaving the new plant over these perceived abuses, and TSMC is struggling to fill those vacancies. TSMC is already heavily dependent on employees brought over from Taiwan, with almost half of its current 2,200 employees in Phoenix coming over as Taiwanese transplants.
largest microchip manufacturer on the planet
front entrance looks like an abandoned 80s era mall
They just built this! I mean not everything has to look like a cybertruck but why does it already look 40 years old
Is this what they mean when they say they’re creating jobs?
Important to note that this is Taiwanese culture, not Chinese; Taiwan is much more exacting in the finished product and generally much more attentive to human rights in terms of work culture, so it is not a direct correlation to what happened in the American Factory doc.
Which brings us to what I believe is the more salient point:
TSMC is very Christian and at least their top management likens their research, discoveries and manufacturing progress to faith-based divine revelation.
The symptoms of worker’s rights abuse may not be simple disregard for labor rights so much as continued religious fervor.
https://www.wired.com/story/i-saw-the-face-of-god-in-a-tsmc-factory/
Their R&D is scientific, but their motivation, timelines and aheer effort is strongly faith-based, in the mindset that God has allowed them to get this far and will allow them to continue to progress no matter what technological hurdles appear.
Either way, labor rights have to be respected, but I wanted to point out that Taiwan and China are entirely separate countries with different work cultures and there’s another pretty important reason why outside workers might be put off by the zealotry with which tsmc focuses on developing cutting edge chip manufacturing.
u wot
It’s not really true.
It stems from a couple of their chairmen being Christian and saying “I see god in nature” (something that I imagine all Christians do).
The above user then extrapolated that Taiwan is Christian (they’re actually 3.9% Christian lol), that TSMC hires people based on religion, and that the reason TSMC is struggling with their US plant is because Taiwan is too Christian in culture for a 67% Christian country, as opposed to, oh I dunno, the discrepancy in working conditions between the US and Taiwan.
I don’t understand the question
I don’t understand anything you wrote.
that must be difficult
Taiwan is less than 4% Christian. I doubt workers in TSMC are significantly different.
6%, and TSMC specifically hires and promotes devout Christians for leadership positions and they say for all positions that Christian belief is important.
It’s in the attached article.
TSMC chairman Mark Liu says that “Every scientist must beleieve in God” and about TSMC’s work, “God means nature. We are describing the face of nature at TSMC”.
3.9%
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Taiwan
Buddhism is at 35.1%, Taoism at 33%, and atheism at 18.7%.
Needless to say, Christianity is not “Taiwanese culture”. They’re about as Christian as Germany is Islamic (3.7%).
This article says nothing other than that some people in high up positions at TSMC are Christian. It doesn’t say anything about pushing Christianity onto workers.
And yeah of course Christians say Christianity is important and that they see god in nature. They’re Christians.
If you’re going to insist on believies instead of the direct testimony of the literal tsmc chairpeople, employees and bosses there, that’s your issue.
enjoy your dreams.
The direct testimony of a couple of TSMC chairpeople is “I’m a Christian and I believe in God. I see God in nature, yes.”
Zero evidence that they specifically hire Christians. Zero evidence that they push religion onto people.
You’re the one extrapolating that all of TSMC must be fervently Christian (not backed up by the article!), and that Taiwan in general is Christian in culture (definitely not in the article!)
I also highly doubt that the culture issue here is that Taiwan (3.9% Christian) is too culturally Christian for the US (67% Christian).
One of us is dreaming, but it’s not me.
You’re misquoting the article and wildly misinterpreting my comments so that you can have a straw man to throw a tantrum about.
Your make-believe is showing
You’re the one playing make-believe mate.
A Christian says they see god in nature and you jump to the conclusion that TSMC is effectively a faith organisation and that there’s a Christian conspiracy to push religion on workers. That TSMC is too Christian for the US of all places.
The cultural issue at play here is not Christianity lmao.
extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends
In recent interviews, 12 TSMC employees, including executives, said culture clashes between Taiwanese managers and American workers had led to frustration on both sides. TSMC is known for its rigorous working conditions. It’s not uncommon for people to be called into work for emergencies in the middle of the night. In Phoenix, some American employees quit after disagreements over expectations boiled over, according to the employees, some of whom asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Employees were expected to pitch in with work outside their job descriptions because construction of the facility was behind schedule.
This approach did not sit well with everyone. Workers were required to do whatever was needed to finish the most pressing job, he said. Some of the American workers also found it difficult to spend a long stretch of time in Taiwan.
Yeah mate. Taiwanese culture, as well as TSMC’s, being too Christian is definitely the issue here! /sarcasm
So what happens to Taiwanese manufacturing when their population collapses due to a super low birthrate. They right behind South Korea in lowest TFR.
It’s happening all over the place. They’re either going to have to lean heavily into automation (where possible), and/or accept mass immigration from parts of the world that continue to have a high birth rate – although as we’re seeing in a lot of places, that can be a tough sell politically.
accept mass immigration from parts of the world that continue to have a high birth rate
Would that not likely result in similar, but different, friction between cultural expectations about working conditions etc?
To my thinking you’d still have the problem TMSC is having right now, just more widespread as they have to adapt to whatever the culture being imported everywhere to shore up worker counts is everywhere it is happening.
Reminds me of the Netflix show “American Factory” about a Chinese factory opening in the US.
Quite a fascinating clash of cultures.
Which reminded me of an 80s movie called Gung Ho about a Japanese company that bought an American automobile manufacturer and the ensuing culture clash.
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
So say we all.
While TSMC is considered by many in Taiwan as the pinnacle of engineering jobs, other companies in Arizona are competing for that labor pool. Intel, in particular, is expanding its Arizona chip factory.
Ya, so about Intel…
When a company opens a facility in another country, why don’t they just higher local people to be the managers?
Because they don’t know or trust them
Same thing happened when Kia entered Europe. Unusually low pay combined with mandatory morning employee marching and exercising in the factory, combined with threats of physical punishment for “under performing” workers.
threats of physical punishment
This can bring people to jail in Germany.
I’m reminded of the time Walmart tried to enter Germany with their work culture. But in their case it wasn’t just that the Germans didn’t like it. It was illegal. And the German customers were weirded out by Walmart employees smiling and being so cheerful all the time.
Apple still tries to have the cherry up-beat customer services department in the UK and it doesn’t work. It’s a Saturday, no one wants to be doing this call, don’t pretend otherwise it’s weird.
But in their case it wasn’t just that the Germans didn’t like it. It was illegal.
I want to learn more?..
Don’t know if it’s in the video, but as far as I remember it was about how working hours were calculated and about worker surveillance. And Walmart trying to control worker’s private lifes by forbidding sexual relationships between workers.
Also things like selling their loss leaders below purchase price. The kicker is that they still lost the price war they started even though the German discounters kept things legal.
Then there was something about not wanting to publish their balance sheets as they’re required to, shutting out the works council from stuff that the works council has a right to be involved in, the list is endless. Not only did they not have a German CEO to manage all that stuff they apparently didn’t even have German lawyers.
No German lawyers ? The amount of stupidity and arrogance is mind blowing
“What do you mean the rest of the world doesn’t follow US laws?”
And Walmart trying to control worker’s private lifes by forbidding sexual relationships between workers.
Just why would they do that? And were that their concern, wouldn’t such people work better, not worse?
Justification I’ve heard is that if one part of the couple is managing the other, or is promoted after the relationship started, then:
- there is a power imbalance in the couple, possibly one is coercing the other (« I can’t leave him/her, they’ll make my worklife hell / get me fired »);
- there is a risk the manager will promote their partner even if their job performance doesn’t warrant it
Companies will want to both avoid this sort of things, and avoid being seen to enable this sort of things. They might want to move one of the parties to a different department so that the higher up one doesn’t make promotion decisions for the other.
I’ve once worked at a company that wanted to know about relationships between their employees and suppliers/customers’ employees, again because that might enable situations where a supplier / customer is treater favourably because of personal relationships
I guess the rational is that a breakup would lead to worse job performance.
Well, that’s quite strange math, the amount of breakups between Walmart employees is expected to be less that the amount of relationships. Facts from the former are mostly a subset of facts from the latter actually.
Unless we consider the possibility that couples come to work at Walmart and break up there, but couples rarely form while already there.
By law: 8 hours as the rule, never more than 10 hours for exceptions.
By contract, they can go a little above the 8 hours.
If they go above the 10, it can cost the company a lot even for a single case.
So they didn’t plan even for such simple things. Wow.
And AZ struggles to update environmental regs… https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09082024/arizona-copper-mining-water-impact/
“We’re all on wells out here and no one can give us an answer as to what aquifer the water is going to be coming from,” Melissa said of the potential mine in the Galiuro Mountains.
Worrying over water is nothing new in Arizona. Nearly 80 percent of the state lacks any groundwater protections, which has allowed large agricultural operations to move in and pump as much as they want without even keeping track of how much they suck from aquifers or paying a penny for it, leading residential wells in some areas to run dry. Water experts, local leaders and rural residents have pushed for years to change that, with the governor now also calling for action, but legislation to resolve the issue has proven divisive in the state legislature.
Mining operations can also pump as much as they want, even when aquifers are tapped out.
3 new chip fabs open recently around phx, which is in low-altitude desert, has had water supply issues for so long there’s a canal running from the Colo river through it all the way to Tucson.
Which is fed by a reservoir so low they find old mobster kills in barrels and might have to stop making power.
Why so stupid and short-sighted?
Ah, “faith-based”.
And a Republican governor made the deals. Who also allowed water to be used to grow alfalfa that’s sent to Saudi to feed their horses.
$$$ + no sense
76% of AZ water use is for agriculture, but that’s besides the point. I’ve read that most of the water used in a fab gets recycled, so once up and running, water usage isn’t as much if an issue as you’d think.
Agriculture probably shouldn’t be happening in deserts
Just more evidence that conservatism is not a legitimate foundation for governance. Conservatism should be a disqualifier for positions of government leadership.
Intel has been receiving billions during the current administration and the last 2 generations of processors are defective.
They had to reanimate Gelsinger to try to save Intel from shitty decisions and are still flailing.
Meanwhile people on SSA have to fight for disability and achools for supplies, unless they’re voucher factories.
Govt still using predatory vendors like Google, Adode, and Microsoft in schools, so teaching students how to use subscription software rather than alternatives.
I think the problem is revolving doors between regulation and regulated entities.
Agreed.
I think progressive policies replacing existing conservative (incl. neoliberal) policies would go a long way to combat corporatocracy and kleptocracy.
It may not solve everything, but it might at least put some goddamn limits in place until we can find ways to overcome human greed.
Cows not horses. Peninsular Arabs are some of the few populations on Earth with the mutation that allows for lactose tolerance among adults. It developed over millennia of having nothing else to consume.
Interesting…the company I applied to told me that it was grown and stored to be flown to Saudi for feeding thoroughbred horses. No mention of cows.
You raise very valid points, and water usage (and over allocation) is a huge issue but it is worth mentioning that Arizona has fairly consistent and predictable weather, decently reliable power grids (with access to cleaner energy sources like solar, hydro, and nuclear), and is pretty seismically stable.
Don’t get me wrong, water consumption is going to be a huge issue once these plants going forward, but I don’t think it’s entirely stupid and nonsensical to park them where they did.
This was a bipartisan screw up, Biden after all led the initiative
Where do you think our cops are going to come from when China invades Taiwan? This was necessary.
Then don’t blame the Republican governor xd. That’s my point.
Really? Nobody at TSMC thought to google “biggest mistake companies make when opening US plants”? Because this has all happened before
Because this has all happened before
Humans generally don’t consider this.
Specifically East Asian managers, I suppose, think they are the ones who’ll finally do it right and make the serfs grow rice by the schedule and without complaints, and those previous attempts were done by some failures and discards who don’t know how to hammer down nails that go up and so on.
(Not racist, just joking)
I hope they can be held accountable for mistreating those 'transplants" (what an ugly word!) too. But I guess that would be easier here in EU than in USA.
extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.
Funny. The same issues that Tesla is experiencing in Germany.
Yeah… I personally was surprised there are developed nations with a more toxic corpo culture than the US. But apparently the Asian powerhouses are all built on corporate servitude.
For a lot of Asian countries the “asian dream” is still somewhat realistic.
Just look at China or Korea. Many of the older folks there grew up in abject poverty, but the countries managed to develop themselves through hard labor into modern, wealthy nations. The promise of “my kids will have it better” was actually true for them. And that promise still drives a lot of the work culture. In China the first cracks already appear, since for the first time in 50 years or so, the current youth has no way up anymore.
Central/Eastern Europe somewhat does.
Also, I don’t like how in much of Europe for many jobs you can’t quit at will, you legally have to give notice (and sometimes not a short one).
At will employment is horse shit. A notice period on a month or 2 months is fine… you agree up front so you know. And your next employer counts this in when hiring. And mostly you have some vacation days you can take to shorten it a bit.
In the Netherlands a determined contract of a year has no “out” other than an agreement between the 2 parties… otherwise you serve it in full. Which is what you agree to when starting it.
Agreeing to it doesn’t mean I like it…
Trapping people in terrible jobs sucks. Especially when it’s considered the legal standard and your contract has to state it’s at will(which might be illegal in some places)
It means they can’t just fire you either. Unless they pay the entire severance up front, which can be multiple months of wage.
Also, losing your job has a lot more impact on your life than a company losing one of its workers impacts that business. So it is definitely in the employees favour.
It depends on the job. And you’re not always guaranteed severance.
It’s a lot more impactful for the worker if they’re trapped in a terrible situation making them miserable. Or if they have to go somewhere else
You read like someone that got a rough deal, ended up in a shit company with a fixed term contract and now regrets signing it.
Most contracts have a probation period… where it is effectively at will. After that, you are stuck for the duration, which is what was agreed.
I don’t know what makes the company so miserable, but not going above and beyond, coming in on time and leaving on time usually helps a lot. I’m not saying start slacking off… but not meeting overbearing production quotas… What are they going to do… fire you? Or pull you off the floor for conversations…
Such a weird take.
A month is easily survivable, the snowball of Beiing fired on the spot, having no income, not being able to afford your living expenses, debts, homelessness is not.
At will employment might be good for a view niche jobs, for most jobs especially the lower paid, it just gives the employer even more power over their employees.
I’d suggest you take your weird american viewpoint on employment and go away. We like the fact that employees get proper protections against predatory corpos.
A month is easily survivable
Depends on the job/employer.
Furthermore it’s more important when things come up. Say you need to go take care of a relative in an emergency.
Yeah, let’s make all regulations up based on exceptions and edgecases.
If something happens and you need space, most EU countries have leave for that, you can also take vacation days (we also get those by law)… or your employer allows you to go.
Again, strange corpo way of trying to normalize not having proper contracts and labor protections. You have bought in to the propaganda too much.
Probably anti union too, no?
It goes both ways, your employer can’t fire you at will either. But it goes further, usually you have a probation period, in Germany it’s up to 6 months during which you can leave any time, or be fired at any time. Beyond that there’s always the option to agree on a shorter notice period, but if you’re getting fired and you agree to a shorter period you won’t get unemployment compensation for that time.
You’d be surprised to hear about Japanese & Korean work culture.
Japan is slowly getting better, but it’s a long road ahead. There are more laws and they’re actually enforcing some of them with regard to harassment and hours worked (a lot of people would clock out and keep working, but they’re trying to make the penalties bit enough to stop it from what I hear. My company is certainly strict about it).
It’d be nice to have european-level vacations before I retire, but that I don’t see happening
Yeah… korea, Japan, Taiwan, China
W for workers rights, L for US fab production
