Worker treatment that's acceptable in Taiwan simply won't be tolerated by US employees

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.

  • RubberDuckEnglish
    1•4 months ago

    Yeah, your consistent set of ethics can go fly a kite.

    • Employees do not share in the profits so should not have to bear ANY of the risks. (No, the fact they have a job at all is NOT sharing in the profit).
    • Cost of recruitment is just cost of doing business. (There is no cost if you don’t have to recruit).
    • Making employees disposable just means the employer has no exposure there, while the employee has it all.

    Profits are supposed to be reimbursement for the investment and the risk involved. In an at-will environment employers have shifted all the risk involved with employing people onto the employee, while keeping the profits.

    So your consistent set of ethics means exploiting people is OK, hoarding profit is OK and selling corporate greed under the guise of “freedom” based on false claims is OK. I’d suggest re-evaluation of your ethics.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•4 months ago

      Employees do not share in the profits so should not have to bear ANY of the risks. (No, the fact they have a job at all is NOT sharing in the profit).

      How is it not? In small businesses wages are often more than the dividends. As in, employees get paid first, ask any small business owner about that.

      Cost of recruitment is just cost of doing business. (There is no cost if you don’t have to recruit).

      Yes. But it means you’re not wanting to fire people randomly most of the time.

      Making employees disposable just means the employer has no exposure there, while the employee has it all.

      It doesn’t make employees disposable, see above. People quit far more often than they’re fired.

      But like I said, I’m not even talking about this from the perspective of the employer, but instead from the employee. Money is more replaceable than time, and it is not ethical to trap someone in a situation that makes them hate their life for a month.

      • RubberDuckEnglish
        1•4 months ago

        I suggest next time you use all your employee negotiating power, to negotiate an “escape clause” in your contract and leave the labor laws in tact for all people that cannot do that negotiation.

        Let us know how the negotiations went!