Ex-employee claims TSMC holds American workers to stricter standards than Taiwanese at Arizona plant
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — More former workers at TSMC Arizona are coming forward, saying they witnessed some of the allegations at the center of a class-action lawsuit against the company.
This comes as the Biden administration finalized the $65 billion deal for three microchip facilities in Arizona.
The lawsuit claims the semiconductor giant discriminated against American workers as it races to open its first production line in north Phoenix early next year.
The suit claims that the Taiwan-based company gives East Asian workers an advantage at every stage of employment, even though TSMC is set to receive $11 billion in federal assistance from the CHIPS and Science Act.
In a statement, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it believes in a diverse workforce and hires and promotes employees without regard to factors like nationality.
On Friday morning, President Joe Biden said in a written statement the final CHIPS award for the three plants in Arizona was finalized.
“This is the largest foreign direct investment in a greenfield project in the history of the United States,” Biden said in the statement.
He said Friday’s announcement was “among the most critical milestones.”
The company makes the chips used in everything from cars to computers.
TSMC Arizona hired thousands of construction workers when it broke ground on its north Phoenix facility in 2021.
One former construction worker contacted Arizona’s Family, saying he saw the company’s double standard firsthand.
“American workers were held to a higher standard,” said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
The worker says TSMC management complained that the unionized American construction workers were too slow, and the company began bringing in busloads of workers from Taiwan.
“We saw them doing things that were obviously unsafe. Things that if we did, we were kicked out of the job indefinitely,” he said. “They would climb even a strut. They would stand on top of duct work, piping—whatever they needed to do to get the job done. We had to get scaffolding put in place.”
He claims the company gradually phased out more and more American workers, including him.
His allegations echo several claims in the class-action lawsuit against TSMC, which says company managers regularly bullied and berated American workers, calling them “stupid” or “lazy,” while giving preferential treatment to visa holders from East Asia.
The suit also claims that U.S. workers’ safety complaints were ignored.
A spokesperson for TSMC said the company would not comment on pending litigation, but said the company provides “various channels for employees to raise concerns and [we] strive to address concerns constructively.”
This week, the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined TSMC following a May incident in which a blast from a pressurized waste truck killed a worker.
“They should be held accountable to treat all races, all national origins, all citizens equally,” said Daniel Kotchen, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit.
Kotchen’s lawsuit says the company “willfully disregarded diversity commitments TSMC made in the CHIPS Act” application.
As of last year, half of the 2,200 people working at TSMC Arizona were visa holders from Taiwan.
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