- cross-posted to:
- technology
- cross-posted to:
- technology
Taiwanese microchip manufacturer TSMC blames struggle to build Phoenix plant on skilled labor shortage but workers cite disorganization and safety concerns
Posed in front of an American flag and a large banner reading “A Future Made in America Phoenix, AZ,” Joe Biden told a crowd of assembled workers, supporters and media last December: “American manufacturing is back, folks.”
Eight months on, the Phoenix microchip plant – the centerpiece of Biden’s $52.7bn US hi-tech manufacturing agenda – is struggling to get online.
The plant’s owner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the largest chip maker in the world, has pushed back plans to start manufacturing to 2025, blaming a lack of skilled labor. It is trying to fast-track visas for 500 Taiwanese workers. Unions, meanwhile, are accusing TSMC of inventing the skills shortage as an excuse to hire cheaper, foreign labor. Others point to safety issues at the plant.
The success of the plant – in a crucial swing state – is likely to get even more scrutiny as Biden prepares for the 2024 election cycle and US tensions with China over technology, and Taiwan, escalate.
Biden signed the Chips and Science Act, which includes $52.7bn in loans, grants and other incentives, and billions more in tax credits for manufacturers to produce the chips in the US, in August 2022.
The Arizona project is the flagship in the president’s efforts to tout the law’s effects and TSMC’s promised $40bn investment in US chip production plant is one of the largest foreign investments in US history and the largest ever in Arizona.
The stakes could not be higher. Semiconductor chips are the essential components of computers, smartphones and other electronic devices, and the coronavirus pandemic exposed how vulnerable the US had become to imported chips. About 12% of semiconductor chips are made in the US, down from 37% in 1990. Boosting US production will add thousands of jobs as well as securing US supplies at a time of worsening relations with China, whose rapidly growing industry accounts for about 9% of global semiconductor sales.
The Phoenix semiconductor manufacturing facility, or “fab”, is a huge undertaking, encompassing a 1,000-acre area north of Phoenix, set to include two fab facilities. Construction is expected to generate 21,000 construction jobs, with the workforce at the facilities estimated at about 4,500, and thousands of additional jobs at suppliers in the area.
But the construction of the plant has been hampered by accidents and misunderstandings, according to insiders who spoke to the Guardian.
A former supervisor at the site explained all contractors at the site operate under the management of two companies affiliated with TSMC, United Integrated Services (UIS) and Marketech International Corp, and blamed delays on disorganization from management and a lack of knowledge by bosses from Taiwan on adhering to safety codes and regulations in the US.
If you disagreed, they threatened “to take work from you and give it to somebody else”, they said. They requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from their general contractor employer. “Then the non-union contractors couldn’t get enough guys out there who were skilled enough.”
They said when they started working at the site, all workers went through a safety training program, but out in the field, they never saw the people who ran that program or safety protocols enforced.
“There were multiple general contractors all in the same little areas, all of them saying different things. Nobody ever coordinated anything; everybody was always in each other’s way, people were storing material everywhere, and it was constantly holding up little projects,” they said.
They explained the main contractors would give them a priority task to complete, but that it would change daily, or they would completely change their mind, making it impossible to complete tasks and add to delays.
“When you have to put stuff up, tear it down, put it up, tear it down, literally five or six times, that’s going to cost five or six times the original quote, probably more because you have to get demolitions involved,” the worker said. “This was constantly the whole process. Everything was rushed. They weren’t giving us actual blueprints, just engineer drawings. It felt like a design-as-we-go type of deal. The information we were getting was really strange, never complete, and always changing. We would get updates constantly and these were big updates to the point where we would have to start pulling things down.”
The worker also criticized frequent evacuations of the job site that occurred mostly due to false alarms and other communication issues that delayed work. They described long traffic lines and wait times to travel in and out of the job site that worsened whenever it rained because of the mud and said the constant turnover of contractors for different job tasks made it even more hectic.
They also noted that portable toilets were too few and were never properly cleaned or stocked with toilet paper and soap, probably resulting in workers getting sick. The worker said instead of calling 911 for safety emergencies, workers were directed to call an internal safety hotline, but that those medical services always took a long time to respond.
“I’ve never been on a job site like this. A job site this big with this many people, you have to be super safe, everything kind of has to slow down because you’re always in somebody’s way, so you have to have a perfect plan if you want to pull this off,” they concluded. “I think they need to get those Taiwan contractors out of there because they are not used to building in America at all. They’re hiring us as professionals to give them a quality installation and advice and direction on how to install things, but they would not listen to us at all.”
Workers and local unions have disputed TSMC’s characterization of the workforce and reasons for the delays. The Arizona Pipe Trades 469 is currently petitioning against TSMC’s application for 500 visas for workers from Taiwan to build the facilities.
A TSMC spokesperson characterized these new visa applications as part of a new phase of construction in the project to install process equipment.
“To ensure this critical phase of tool installation goes smoothly and successfully, it is a very common practice in the semiconductor industry to have a very limited number of experienced specialists from different overseas locations onsite to assist with important steps in the process. These experienced individuals have deep familiarity with our supplier equipment and will partner with our strong local workforce during this phase,” said the spokesperson in an email.
In an op-ed, Aaron Butler, president of the Arizona Building and Construction Trades Council, criticized TSMC’s announcement as an attempt to endanger American jobs and disputed claims from TSMC that the US workforce lacks the experience and skills required to complete construction.
“Blaming American workers for problems with this project is as offensive to American workers as it is inaccurate,” Butler wrote. “TSMC is blaming its construction delays on American workers and using that as an excuse to bring in foreign workers who they can pay less.”
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archive link: https://archive.is/6QajQ
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This might be the first time I’ve seen “we want to import disposable workers” framed as a lack of skilled labor. Bravo!
That has been, and is still, common in the IT industry. They want to hire “skilled” workers for entry level jobs/pay. They complain that nobody applies for these jobs so clearly there’s no skilled workers available. They end up begging for unskilled contract workers instead of inexperienced college graduates.
The lack of “skilled” workers is people unwilling to work for specific pay and/or work conditions. Same as it ever was.
Whiney babies on both sides of this. If American labor is qualified it should be used. If it’s not, the Visas should be fast-tracked.
The workers either have the skills or they don’t. According to an article a couple weeks ago, most all the construction, plumbing, and wiring is done. The only thing left to do is install highly specialized machines and program them. Apparently the machines and software come from Scandinavia somewhere (not sure exact country off hand).
Hell no. The WHOLE POINT of this endeavor is to get these skills and manufacturing back into the US. They’d be missing the whole point by replacing local workers with temporary visas.
If they want to hire and build the way they want, then they don’t get the billions in federal funding.
If they want the federal funding, then they need to take the time to train up the local workers and build it in a way to get the entirety of the workforce and manufacturing local.
The fiction of no-skilled-workers available always means that skilled workers are unwilling to work for peanuts and/or poor working conditions. If they want to pay pennies, then you hire someone straight out of college and train them. If they want experienced people, then start offering enough $ to bring them in. They should strive for both, so they can build up an effective, and sustainable workforce. But corporate penny pinchers don’t want that, they want cheap visa labor that they can abuse or threaten them to lose their job (which means deportation.)
Hell no. The WHOLE POINT of this endeavor is to get these skills and manufacturing back into the US. They’d be missing the whole point by replacing local workers with temporary visas.
Ehhhh.
The point is that if (possibly when) China invades Taiwan, USA wants a steady supply of Xilinx FPGAs for our F35s and RADARs.
The fact of the matter is: the current situation is that our military (specifically our Air Force) is entirely dependent on the import of rather peculiar chips from the island of Taiwan. While we can trust our allies with this task, we cannot trust China (or its military) to invade and cut us off.
The US Military, especially our high-tech Air Force and possibly even Navy (since Navy also needs a ton of those RADAR chips) relies upon the island of Taiwan and processes that only TSMC (currently in Taiwan) can make. Encouraging Taiwan to build a factory here in the USA solves the imminent military problem, which probably takes priority over worker issues if I am to be frank.
Ideally, we solve both issues. But the immediate problem is that we need this factory up-and-running before China invades Taiwan.
Most of our Auto-chips come from TSMC as well, not just the high-tech ones like GPUs or FPGAs. TSMC also makes a ton of our microcontrollers (the things that control anti-lock brakes, air-bags, tire-pressure monitors, CAN-bus to control our steering wheels and/or our pedals). Those are all chips today, and TSMC / Taiwan makes them. If the island is attacked, we need a plan-B.
