This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Just imagine what they would face in Europe, where workers even have rights!
Teaching the Asian colleagues the fine art of blocking factories and burning tires.
Idk I seen the South Korean picket lines, that looks like solidarity to me.
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.
This makes me laugh because I work for a UK company that was bought out by an American company, who's trying to treat the UK staff how they would treat US staff - and it's not going well.
Our American colleagues cannot fathom how much time we take off for holidays, especially around Christmas. They also got a shock when doing some recent "restructuring" they couldn't just fire a bunch of UK folks.
Our American colleagues cannot fathom how much time we take off for holidays
So many days if it’s like colombia. They have 37 holidays off each year. It’s great but im constantly forgetting which days are festivals so i always end up walking to the store and then returning home dejected because i couldn’t buy my cheese.
In china I had a UK roommate. He was on the phone with his mom mid week when she should have been at work. I asked if she was sick and he was like "No. She took some vacation days to tidy the house." My jaw hit the floor. My vacation days in the US were so precious and so few that I'd never fathom using any to do chores. Unreal that you can have so much vacation you'd elect to spend it doing chores.
Sounds like the time Walmart tried to get a foothold in germany. Their american way of treating workers, but especially their way of treating customers (greeters at the door) crashed and burned hard here.
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.
You'd be surprised to hear about Japanese & Korean work culture.
Yeah.. korea, Japan, Taiwan, China
Happy workers are hard workers, treat them like shit and they'll walk right out the door.
Correct! Well unless, they're starving and need to feed their families.
Aren't the machines TSMC uses made in the Netherlands? They're the only ones who can get down to that size, and they do it working 36 hours a week...
My brother worked for such a Dutch company (ASM) and often got sent overseas to supervise the setting up of the production lines with these machines.
He mentioned when he'd get sent to Asia, the workers would make sure to get it done over a weekend, while implementing the same setup would take 2 to 3 weeks in the US. In part that was due to the working conditions mentioned, but also simple lack of planning in case of the latter (things would grind down to a haalt because certain changes would need to be made, and the person responsible for the decision wouldn't respond for hours or days, etc).
Side note: while 36 hour work weeks are common in the Netherlands, 40 hours is still the norm in my experience.
Funny thing is, TSMC in Taiwan is considered a premium employer. It offers much better pay and parks than other companies.
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
Not a surprise given that worker rights are practically non-existant in the East.
Still wild that TSMC thought they could pull that on western workers. I hope they realize it's not gonna happen and rethink their processes.
Similar stuff happened with US companies in the EU.
That stuff even happens with UK companies taking over German companies. They think they can just fire the members of the working council, very bad mistake! Remember, if you go to another country, you have to adjust to their law.
if you go to another country, you have to adjust to their law
Big business knows no national boundaries. They'll build factories wherever labor is cheap, put headquarters wherever the taxes are low, and sell their wares wherever consumer rights are weak.
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)
Beatings will continue until morale improves.
These shiti corps are dealing with demographic shift in US labour force coupled with severe disillusionment since comp barely justifies showing uo half the time.
Why anyone would break a sweat to make another man rich lol
People are taking notice.
perceived abuses
Way to be passive aggressive, haha. Next they'll be apologising "we're sorry you feel that way" :P
I remember watching a documentary a few years ago where this exact situation happened. Chinese company buys American company, tries to establish their work culture and it just doesn't work.
It’s the same the world over. I’ve worked for years for a western company which has got a large part of their business in Asia and China.
You try taking our “western ways” of leadership to China and see how well it fares; what I would consider “leaving space for a leader to operate and feel accountable” is seen as “my leader has no fucking clue what he is doing; he never tells me what he wants me to do”.
Culture eats everything for breakfast. As a western leader in China you have to act like a controlling maniac (in my cultural frame) to be seen as an effective leader in China.
And it goes both ways. My brother reports to a Chinese manager transplanted to the west and she “desperately wants to micromanage everything” according to the western team.
We are all trying our best.
largest microchip manufacturer on the planet
front entrance looks like an abandoned 80s era mall
It doesn’t mean that the US factory is any less capable. What needs reworking is meeting the expectation and planning for contingencies. There should be ongoing shifts, specialized teams, rotation, mitigation, etc. I think our output is comparable but it’s done more safely and sustainable over a longer time VS grinding workers to dust and replacing them.
It's not about capabilities, it's about cost.
If you can exploit your workers, pay shit wages for long hours, you'll get a cheaper product. You can get the same output by applying higher standards, but that would mean hiring more people.
The more time i spend in manufacturing environments ( I spend all my time there) the less i see actual product being the finished good. Business are setting themselves up for this autopilot pipe dream of "AI gonna fix everything" marketing/engineering utopia and in reality all it's doing is dividing your operations crew and management. They are neglecting equipment, default mode of compliance is non compliance because of awful processes and quality cutbacks (staffing staffing staffing) and at the end you get a product that's probably not gmp but who cares it's shipping.
That's the nature of capitalism.
Look at healthcare, software, construction. Unless there's a very clear incentive to produce high quality (laws or enforceable contracts) things will go lower and lower in quality.
And unfortunately, a lot of consumers don't care all that much about quality. They want crap that looks fancy.
I work in a fab and it's pretty industry standard to run 12 hr shifts for operators (3 on 4 off then 4 on 3 off) and if your in engineering or IT be ready to be on call cause they don't want a 20-100 million+ machine down any longer then absolutely necessary.
I also work in a fab. We have the 3-4-4-3 rotating shift pattern just like everyone else, but we don't treat our people like cattle, unlike TSMC. We also tend to slightly overstaff, versus TSMC that understaffs and drives their people harder to make up for the difference.
Reminds me of the Netflix show “American Factory” about a Chinese factory opening in the US.
Quite a fascinating clash of cultures.
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.....
Is this what they mean when they say they're creating jobs?
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 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.
