"Hi TSMC. Could you build a massive pseudo village/factory where you indoctrinate the locals with your toxic work culture, sending your managers to act as overlords for our under-educated workers? We will pay you."
"You want us to basically colonize a town in Arizona?"
"Ummm... Yeah"
Tbh it doesn't even sound like TSMC were trying to make it work. I wonder if these American plants are meant to be potemkin villages with low outputs just to please the American government. But seems like Intel is able to make fabrication facilities in the USA work, so it should be possible.
Yep, that's exactly what it sounds. Just another scheme to launder tax payer money into private hands. However, it is certainly interesting to read about the toxic work culture.
The company gets the government grants either way, and with the money they save from not funding the facility properly, they have spare cash to bribe politicians to secure more funding. It's the perfect system!
It's definitely a token factory just to get these subsidies, they will shutdown that factory whenever they stop these subsidies i guarantee it.
They knew the American workers wouldn't accept the level of exploitation necessary to mske their business model work.
Wow, from reading the article, the taiwanese work culture sounds hellish. I am pretty sure that this type of work culture can be found where I live as well but damn I am lucky than I am not in a hell like the one described in the article.
What the hell? This article is so wild and TSMC is so “satanic” I actually felt sorry for the American workers.
This part was a crazy read for me:
One former American engineer said some local co-workers referred to him as a “white breeding pig,” implying he was only in Taiwan to sleep with local women. At a meeting, a manager said Americans were less desirable than Taiwanese and Indian workers, according to people who saw leaked notes, which circulated among trainees.
Some Taiwanese workers attended a class on U.S. culture, where they learned that Americans responded better to encouragement rather than criticism, according to an engineer who attended the session.
ah yes treating your underlings with basic respect is a cultural thing in the US, common misunderstanding really
“Everything comes from working hard. Without this culture, TSMC cannot be number one in the world,” he said with passion. “I want to support TSMC to be great. It’s my religion.”
This work "culture" of literally just having no self esteem is pure cancer. It's perfectly reasonable to not want to work at such a place if you have options
TSMC workers were asked to draw up reports and keep other documents in a PowerPoint format so that they could regularly make presentations to upper management. The Taiwanese employees were used to it, while the Americans became impatient with typing up weekly work reports. The Americans also resented that Taiwanese colleagues stayed late at the office for no good reason. “That pisses me off,” Bruce said. “They were just doing it for show.”
Five former employees from the U.S. told Rest of World that TSMC engineers sometimes falsified or cherry-picked data for customers and managers. Sometimes, the engineers said, staff would manipulate data from testing tools or wafers to please managers who had seemingly impossible expectations. Other times, one engineer said, “because the workers were spread so thin, anything they could do to get work off their plate they would do.” Four American employees described TSMC culture as “save face”: Workers would strive to make a team, a department, or the company look good at the expense of efficiency and employee wellbeing.
So the long hours aren't even necessary. Just shitty management and busy work.
It seems to me US wants to “transfer knowledge” from TSMC, and they know it, so they are intentionally talking Chinese and bullying them with no intention of giving up their trade secrets to Americans.
I think everybody knows that chip fabs is the one card Taiwan holds over the US. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure they're intentionally dragging this out.
