More Trouble for TSMC in Arizona; American Workers Hate Taiwanese Culture

A U.S. labor union has started a petition calling for Taiwanese workers to be prohibited from working on the construction of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s (TSMC) Arizona facility.

The Arizona Pipe Trades 469 Union started the petition to prevent visas from being issued to foreign workers after TSMC said it would send Taiwanese staff to help with project delays.

The petition is being sent to U.S. legislators and asks that “more than 500 EB-2 visas the company has requested for construction workers” be blocked.

“TSMC has shown a lack of respect for American workers, placing profit above worker safety and deliberately misrepresenting the quality, skills, and experience of Arizona’s workforce,” the petition reads. It comes after the founder of TSMC said in July he was unhappy to learn that unionized labor would be building the facility.

In late June, TSMC said that it would send more workers from Taiwan to the U.S. to work on building its semiconductor manufacturing facility in Arizona, but it did not say how many workers would be sent. Sources familiar with the matter who said it would be “several hundred.”

On Monday (Aug. 7), TSMC agreed to apply more scrutiny to the safety of its workers on the Arizona project, beyond what is required by state and federal law. The agreement followed an American Prospect investigation in June, which reported workers who said “injuries and safety violations are rampant," and union representatives who said two workers had died on site (one directly related to a workplace accident, the other by drug overdose).

Workers said that because the project was behind schedule, TSMC was cutting corners on safety. The business director for the union that created the petition, Josh Wakeham, said in one instance workers were told to hastily evacuate the site because of an “active-shooter drill,” when in fact there was a gas leak.

“So, no one trusts them,” Wakeham said. “It’s their culture of, ‘Hey, we’re not trying to slow down any productivity, get back to work, nothing to see here.’” Workers have also complained of a "brutal" work culture at TSMC facilities, a complaint that was dismissed by the company's Chair Mark Liu.

TSMC rejected the claims made in the report and said no workers had died on the site. “For TSMC Arizona, our safety and injury incident rates are significantly lower than state and national benchmarks,” the company said in a statement.

Anonymous