TSMC workers are pushing back, saying poor management is to blame for construction delays impacting the Arizona plant.
TSMC has been building a fabrication plant in Arizona, but the project is behind schedule. The company’s latest estimates are now targeting 2025 for the plant to begin production, not 2024, as was originally predicted. TSMC management has blamed a shortage of skilled local labor, even going so far as to bring in workers from Taiwan to pick up the slack.
According to Business Insider, workers at the project are blaming “operational mismanagement and administrative chaos” for the delays.
“They keep saying we’re slowing them down, but they’re not giving us the information we need,” a pipe cutter who has worked on the project for roughly a year told Insider. “Most of us are capable of doing it if you gave us the correct information.”
The pipe worker, as well as many of the other workers, previously worked on some of Intel’s manufacturing projects and noted the night and day difference between how the two companies are managing their projects.
“At Intel, they can give me a package that says, ‘Hey, this is the equipment that I want you to build. This is the deadline. These are the standards.’ Everything you could think of,” he said. “And essentially, TSMC is the exact opposite. They just say, ‘Build this.’ And I don’t get the blueprints. There’s no planning. They essentially assume everybody just knows how to do the job. But I can’t read your mind.”
“TSMC wants you to get the job done with as little amount of information and as fast as possible,” he added.
Safety Concerns
Safety has increasingly become another major sticking point, with workers saying TSMC’s safety rules are not up to par with international standards.
“Sometimes we’ll have to do work two or three times because they’re like, ‘Well, this is how we do it in Taiwan,’” one welder told Insider. “So we build it exactly how they want it, but then as soon as it’s put in, we’re not going to sign off on it because it’s illegal. It’s against international building code.”
The pipe cutter says there are onsite safety violations, such as “hundreds of pounds of weight” hanging 20-30 feet above workers’ heads. The violations have led the pipe cutter to conclude the factory may ultimately prove to be a very dangerous place to work once it is completed.
“One of the most dangerous places to work in the United States is in a semiconductor facility because there are large amounts of chemicals,” he said. “Stuff is going to break, and when it does, these are nasty, nasty chemicals. And that’s my worry. I would not want to be in these buildings after they’re fully complete.”
Obviously, both sides are blaming each other for the delays…which in and of itself highlights the scope of the problems TSMC is facing.
