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.
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.
In Taiwan, TSMC is known for 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.
I'll say this again: we need to seize the means of production.
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.
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.
Hire more to work regular 8h shifts.
Honestly once you get used to 12 hour shifts you come to prefer them. You have half the year off before you factor in vacation and sick leave. There is built in overtime every day. The time doesn't feel much longer than an 8 hour day.
12 hour night shift was rough. The work hours weren't bad but it was too hard to get on regular hours on my days off.
My friend, I can't even manage an eight hour day without extreme burnout. I know I'm not necessarily in the majority there, but hearing you say 12 could ever possibly be comfortable just sounds like nonsense to me
Well hopefully it fails and sells to a not terrible company.
AMD, Nvidia, and Apple would have to fail first
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.
Central/Eastern Europe somewhat does.
Also, I don't like how in much of Europe for many jobs you can't quit at will, you legally have to give notice (and sometimes not a short one).
At will employment is horse shit. A notice period on a month or 2 months is fine.. you agree up front so you know. And your next employer counts this in when hiring. And mostly you have some vacation days you can take to shorten it a bit.
In the Netherlands a determined contract of a year has no "out" other than an agreement between the 2 parties.. otherwise you serve it in full. Which is what you agree to when starting it.
Agreeing to it doesn't mean I like it...
Trapping people in terrible jobs sucks. Especially when it's considered the legal standard and your contract has to state it's at will(which might be illegal in some places)
Such a weird take.
A month is easily survivable, the snowball of Beiing fired on the spot, having no income, not being able to afford your living expenses, debts, homelessness is not.
At will employment might be good for a view niche jobs, for most jobs especially the lower paid, it just gives the employer even more power over their employees.
I'd suggest you take your weird american viewpoint on employment and go away. We like the fact that employees get proper protections against predatory corpos.
A month is easily survivable
Depends on the job/employer.
Furthermore it's more important when things come up. Say you need to go take care of a relative in an emergency.
Yeah, let's make all regulations up based on exceptions and edgecases.
If something happens and you need space, most EU countries have leave for that, you can also take vacation days (we also get those by law).. or your employer allows you to go.
Again, strange corpo way of trying to normalize not having proper contracts and labor protections. You have bought in to the propaganda too much.
Probably anti union too, no?
Yeah, let's make all regulations up based on exceptions and edgecases.
When it comes to people's freedoms, yes.
If something happens and you need space, most EU countries have leave for that
Assuming you've earned/haven't used it.
Again, strange corpo way of trying to normalize not having proper contracts and labor protections. You have bought in to the propaganda too much.
Not a corpo. Stop with the ad hominems.
Probably anti union too, no?
Some unions do good things, some do bad.
Freedoms are good to protect, but protecting people most of the time and giving them freedom to live a prosperous life is most important. And the freedom at-will employment gives you is overshadowed by the freedom it gives companies to have employees bear the risk, while hoarding all the profits.
Your argument only holds true for a small subset of employees and even then, their market value overshadows the need for the flexibility.
I'll leave it at that, and if you spout corporate propaganda that has been ingrained into you from birth.. I'll call it like it is.
And the freedom at-will employment gives you is overshadowed by the freedom it gives companies to have employees bear the risk, while hoarding all the profits.
Both parties bear the risk. It's hard and expensive for companies to replace most people in developed economies. Have you ever been fired with no notice? Because my understanding is workers quit a lot more often than they get fired(or at least that's what I've done).
I'll leave it at that, and if you spout corporate propaganda that has been ingrained into you from birth.. I'll call it like it is.
My beliefs are based on a consistent set of ethics. Stop insulting me.
Yeah, your consistent set of ethics can go fly a kite.
Profits are supposed to be reimbursement for the investment and the risk involved. In an at-will environment employers have shifted all the risk involved with employing people onto the employee, while keeping the profits.
So your consistent set of ethics means exploiting people is OK, hoarding profit is OK and selling corporate greed under the guise of "freedom" based on false claims is OK. I'd suggest re-evaluation of your ethics.
Employees do not share in the profits so should not have to bear ANY of the risks. (No, the fact they have a job at all is NOT sharing in the profit).
How is it not? In small businesses wages are often more than the dividends. As in, employees get paid first, ask any small business owner about that.
Cost of recruitment is just cost of doing business. (There is no cost if you don't have to recruit).
Yes. But it means you're not wanting to fire people randomly most of the time.
Making employees disposable just means the employer has no exposure there, while the employee has it all.
It doesn't make employees disposable, see above. People quit far more often than they're fired.
But like I said, I'm not even talking about this from the perspective of the employer, but instead from the employee. Money is more replaceable than time, and it is not ethical to trap someone in a situation that makes them hate their life for a month.
I suggest next time you use all your employee negotiating power, to negotiate an "escape clause" in your contract and leave the labor laws in tact for all people that cannot do that negotiation.
Let us know how the negotiations went!
Important to note that this is Taiwanese culture, not Chinese; Taiwan is much more exacting in the finished product and generally much more attentive to human rights in terms of work culture, so it is not a direct correlation to what happened in the American Factory doc.
Which brings us to what I believe is the more salient point:
TSMC is very Christian and at least their top management likens their research, discoveries and manufacturing progress to faith-based divine revelation.
The symptoms of worker's rights abuse may not be simple disregard for labor rights so much as continued religious fervor.
https://www.wired.com/story/i-saw-the-face-of-god-in-a-tsmc-factory/
Their R&D is scientific, but their motivation, timelines and sheer effort is strongly faith-based, in the mindset that God has allowed them to get this far and will allow them to continue to progress no matter what technological hurdles appear.
Either way, labor rights have to be respected, but I wanted to point out that Taiwan and China are entirely separate countries with different work cultures and there's another pretty important reason why outside workers might be put off by the zealotry with which tsmc focuses on developing cutting edge chip manufacturing.
Taiwan is less than 4% Christian. I doubt workers in TSMC are significantly different.
E: 3.9%. source
