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Comment by jmpman | Hacker News Reader

I’ve heard that the problem isn’t the lack of skilled engineers in AZ, but the union trades. At Intel they have to prepare the location for an electrical pull three days ahead of time. The pull must be between 9am and 4pm, M-F. I expect the unions are making similar demands at TSMC, and the Taiwanese, just like every other American business owner are pissed. However the Taiwanese think that bringing over people to do the trade work themselves is going to improve the pace. That’s going to result in a plant which will be continuously sabotaged by the unions. What really needs to happen is the AZ Democratic Governor (or the two Democratic senators) need to step in and negotiate with the Unions. She probably doesn’t realize this is the most important issue in the state right now, and that she can make a difference.

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Scheduling work between 9-4 M-F is the reason for massive delays and budget overruns? Union tradesmen purely to blame?

Here’s a comment from another article linked in the OP to give another side to the story:

“I have intimate knowledge of this project from the beginning. There are multiple causes for this project being behind schedule and over budget. They all stem from TSMC themselves.

First, TSMC and their engineers are absolutely clueless about building to meet U.S. code. Within 8 weeks of the project starting, they were firing the Tiawan based engineers because they were clueless and could not communicate with the U.S. based partners.

Second, they are behind schedule because THEY OWE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO SUBCONTRACTORS AND ARE NOT PAYING. Yes, HUNDREDS of MILLIONS. Contractors have stopped work because they have not been paid. No wonder they want to bring in out of country labor. They won't have to worry about paying anybody. I literally have been told "this is not how we do it in Taiwan. We just settle up at the end of the project."

This should be an insult and slap in the face to all U.S. taxpayers, not just the contractors and workers who are being taken advantage of by TSMC and our local officials who are supporting them and their actions. Yes, Mayor Gallego, Senator Sinema, Senator Kelly I am calling you out. Keep telling everyone how great a deal this is for us. So TSMC wants $50 billion from U.S. tax payers, they don't want to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to contractors who have done work, and now they want to bring in their cheap slave labor so they can circumvent the work stoppage by contractors they wont pay. Everything I said is true and verifiable.”

https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/29/tsmc-arizona-chip-plant-delay...

>"this is not how we do it in Taiwan"

Reminds me of the movie Gung Ho where the Japanese are trying to build cars in 80's America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKNeFHBPgRo

or Chinese LCD factory in Ohio https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9351980/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk - American Factory

Is it an accurate documentary, or is it some over dramatized Netflix piece like Drive to survive?

I'd like to see other sources that they don't pay for subcontractors. I don't think 9to5 and its comments are good sources for semiconductor manufacturing.

At the same time, Japan's TSMC fab (JASM), building is on schedule and don't see such problems. Maybe lower salary and similar work culture contribute flawless building.

Negotiating with the unions doesn't make any difference if there fundamentally aren't enough workers in the labor force at the currently needed skill levels. If they want more workers, you have to actually look at training programs or pulling from wider regional workers - maybe negotiate with union to take on more apprentices and accepting regional union members for the surge.

That's what they keep saying, but other projects seem to be able to get stuff built just fine if they are paying market rates.

From what I hear, they are being extremely tight with their budget, while simultaneously demanding aggressive timelines. These things are for the most part, mutually exclusive.

Yes you're probably right. The governor of Arizona doesn't realize what the most important issue in her state is right now, but you do.

She’s a politician. The most important issue in her state right now is the next election. That’s true for every politician.

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