TSMC's new expansion into Arizona has received serious scrutiny from engineers and industry insiders for its myriad examples of poor treatment of workers, reports nonprofit news site Rest of World. The article claims the company's culture of chronic overwork, cruel managerial style, and poor treatment of its engineers in its Taiwanese plants has ported over poorly to an American labor force who are now leaving its new plant over perceived abuses.
Taiwan's darling comes to the US
TSMC, the world's leader in advanced chipmaking, has been a major recipient of the Biden administration's CHIPS Act, receiving billions of dollars from the US government in exchange for bringing semiconductor production to the United States. The corporation's position as the largest company in Taiwan is a concern for Western powers who fear a conflict with China could potentially hurt their ability to source TSMC chips. As a result, the government has been aggressively courting TSMC to open production in the US.
TSMC's $660 billion stature has grown to the largest company in its native Taiwan and has earned it godlike reverence, being called a "divine mountain that guards the nation" by some citizens. As a result, its Taiwanese workforce is more than willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the company. 12-hour workdays that extend into the weekends are common, as is harsh treatment from managers who were expected to call workers out-of-hours and reportedly threaten firing as punishment for relatively minor failures. This work culture can survive in Taiwan, where TSMC is the pinnacle of engineering jobs, but when American engineers are introduced, friction occurs quickly.
Labor abuses drive away new workforce
American engineers were brought to Taiwan back in 2021 to be trained in TSMC chip production for when the two new expansion plants in Arizona (originally set to be opened in 2024 and 2026) would begin operation. The report says American engineers were shocked to encounter the 12-hour workdays and a high-pressure environment; one engineer asked their manager which of his tasks was of the highest priority, which was met with the response, "Everything is a priority."
The inability to prioritize jobs and instead expect furious intensity on every task, no matter how large, was decried by Americans as poor management, which leads to inefficiency. But these intense expectations are a feature of company culture according to its founder, Morris Chang. Chang was quoted by Rest of World as saying, "If [a machine] breaks down at one in the morning, in the U.S., it will be fixed in the next morning. But in Taiwan, it will be fixed at 2 am." This marriage to impossible timelines was pounded into visiting American engineers with stress tests; assignments announced on the same week or even day to ensure American engineers could sacrifice personal time like a Taiwanese worker.
Once production on the Arizona fabs progressed far enough, American workers were brought back stateside along with their Taiwanese coworkers. But construction ran into many delays, with both fabs currently around a year behind schedule. Many Americans left TSMC in their training phase in Taiwan, and retention fell further after returning to America and finding that the company work culture remained even at the new plants. Engineers who expected to work on the production lines found themselves being tasked with taking out the garbage of construction workers. Taiwanese managers even reportedly had to receive training on not yelling at workers in public, which didn't stick. The workers claim that engineers found that they had to fake test results on production wafers in order to meet their impossible expectations.
TSMC's future in the US
Taiwanese workers who have become accustomed to such workforce rights violations and American workers used to complaining or quitting over the same conditions have not been able to fully mesh. Americans complain about "Asian culture" on Glassdoor, and Taiwanese engineers consider their native coworkers arrogant and carefree. This friendly fire between workers is heartbreaking to those who know that the only enemy in such a situation is not their fellow workers but the corporation that enables such workplace abuse.
TSMC is not expected to slow down anytime soon, even with such worker rights abuses drawing ire. It will be able to charge consumers higher prices for its made-in-America parts, and the 12-figure CHIPS Act funding alone will provide ample incentive to keep trying to make the Phoenix expansion work. Hopefully with time comes a better workplace for engineers. For more on this situation and direct quotes from the engineers in question, read the Rest of World's original story here. For more on TSMC, consider reading about how TSMC has been helping Taiwan in the wake of its recent earthquakes.
