TSMC sued for race and citizenship discrimination at its Arizona facilities
- Thread starter tonyget
- Start date
Agreed.
It is also confusing that TSMC is said to have actively hired non Taiwanese people then made it impossible for them to succeed. That is not the TSMC I know. And by the way, Rick Cassidy would not do that. I'm from a military family, Grandfather was a West Point Graduate, they are a different breed, strict - by the book - no games. We called him Colonel or sir instead of Grandfather.
Rick Cassidy
Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy Development
Education:
B.S. degree in Engineering, United States Military Academy at West Point, USA
Experience:
- Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy Office / Chairman, TSMC Arizona
- Senior Vice President, Chief Executive Officer of TSMC North America
- Vice President, TSMC North America Account Management
- General Manager, Military & Aerospace Division and Co-Chair of General Manager Council, National Semiconductor.
Mr. Cassidy's electronics career began at Fairchild Semiconductor, later acquired by National Semiconductor. Over an 18-year span he rose through manufacturing, engineering, quality and reliability, and marketing, culminating with his appointment as Vice President and General Manager of National's Military & Aerospace Division and Co-Chair of National's General Manager Council.
Prior to entering the semiconductor industry, Mr. Cassidy served as an officer in the U.S. Army. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Mr. Cassidy currently serves on the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) Board of Directors, an organization dedicated to the advancement of the worldwide semiconductor industry.
There are two sides to every story, but it is interesting how such a large and successful company completely failed in any integration of new people and the with that understanding of the culture of the US out in place some policy and enforced them.
They had consultants and training but none of that was a priority of the CEO who role modeled a completely different behavior and that was waterfalled down base on who was promoted, brought or removed.
One has to be sympathetic to the Taiwanese, all are on visa have few options if they don’t listen to their boss and success and schedule is the only thing the boss cares about. With half the workforce and almost all the union and general contractors don’t share the same work commitment the Taiwanese end up working harder than they did in Taiwan to save their career and life. That drives an unfortunate divide as almost all the local hires have none of that constraint. Add in that all of the leadership speak English poorly the natural survival is to revert to the language that is natural to get the desperate work done. There is totally local of direct transparency in the organization and that built the huge wall of distrust and mass turnover of the local hired putting more pressure on on the assignees, what a terrible cycle.
They had consultants and training but none of that was a priority of the CEO who role modeled a completely different behavior and that was waterfalled down base on who was promoted, brought or removed.
One has to be sympathetic to the Taiwanese, all are on visa have few options if they don’t listen to their boss and success and schedule is the only thing the boss cares about. With half the workforce and almost all the union and general contractors don’t share the same work commitment the Taiwanese end up working harder than they did in Taiwan to save their career and life. That drives an unfortunate divide as almost all the local hires have none of that constraint. Add in that all of the leadership speak English poorly the natural survival is to revert to the language that is natural to get the desperate work done. There is totally local of direct transparency in the organization and that built the huge wall of distrust and mass turnover of the local hired putting more pressure on on the assignees, what a terrible cycle.
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TSMC has been in the US since the beginning. TSMC has been working with US customers and suppliers, TSMC has a fab in the US, so how can you say that TSMC does not know the culture? In my experience TSMC is the hardest working company in the semiconductor industry. If you don't want to work hard then don't apply at TSMC. If you want a 50/50 work life balance don't apply at TSMC. If you are uncomfortable with your co workers speaking Mandarin do not work for TSMC. If you expect TSMC to be like Intel do not work for TSMC.
If you want to work for a company that has changed the world then TSMC might be for you.
Many locals came for the challenge and willingness to work hard, but when management has no understand nor openness to do any way but their way and when senior leaders have no ability to to seek to understand and at the highest level of management make personal insults and attack your intelligences and commitment and say things that would and could be considered worse than bulling with no repercussions from HQ that isnt a place that motivates. Locals have many options and many have left. Sure they will find many more foreigners and Taiwanese to take their place and that is pretty much what has happened.
If you are white, Latino, Africa. America you will be an outsider more than not no matter how hard you want to learn and works
Assignees and locals work differently and many locals are willing to work hard, but between the belittling and unequal treatment and little opportunity one shouldn’t be surprised at why much good talent has left.
I'm sorry things did not work out for you at TSMC. TSMC's loss is another company's gain. Maybe you should try Samsung in Texas. I'm sure you could teach them a thing or two.
Community and Labor Groups React to CHIPS Act Contract with TSMC
Celebrate Environmental Reporting but Call for Greater Transparency around Job QualityCommunity and Labor Groups React to CHIPS Act Contract with TSMC
Washington, DC – Members of CHIPS Communities United (CCU), a coalition of unions, environmental, social justice, civil rights, and community groups, responded to the contract announced on Friday between the CHIPS for America Program Office and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)...
Artificer60
Well-known member
I have worked at a Taiwanese managed company in the US (not TSMC). Many of my former colleagues would agree with your assessment. However, my personal experience was different.
I had a manager tell me a couple of things to try and help me understand the just how the corporate culture was different from anywhere else I had been before.
First he told me that in his culture, you never told anyone they had done a good job. To do so was to imply that their was nothing they could improve on and that the manager didn't feel the employee would progress any further.
The second was a story about a chicken and a monkey. He said you have a chicken and a monkey. The chicken isn't worth much, but you think the monkey has potential. So you watch the chicken and wait for it to screw up. When it does you kill it in front of the monkey. Now the monkey knows what happens if you are careless, but is still around to learn the lesson.
Both of these are very different from management approaches in the US, but I found that a willingness to try and understand and conform to the culture management wanted to create went a long way. I certainly didn't give up all of my "American" attitudes or beliefs, but at the end of the day they knew I understood it was their company and would give them what they asked for. As a result, I was eventually given opportunities to do things many of my co-workers were not. My impression was that initially they were waiting for me to show them that I was willing to work within their system.
The situation at TSMC may be different, but I suspect the cultural norms and expectations are similar.
I can't think of one thing I can say about the Sierra Club is that is appropriate for a professional forum.Community and Labor Groups React to CHIPS Act Contract with TSMC
Celebrate Environmental Reporting but Call for Greater Transparency around Job Quality
Community and Labor Groups React to CHIPS Act Contract with TSMC
Washington, DC – Members of CHIPS Communities United (CCU), a coalition of unions, environmental, social justice, civil rights, and community groups, responded to the contract announced on Friday between the CHIPS for America Program Office and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)...www.sierraclub.org
My Company now have Taiwanese Senior Management , and to be honest they are a breath of fresh air so far compared to the previous management.
Whether I survive the upcoming changes , the changes are needed and hopefully for the company what these folks planning comes to fruition!!
I myself had experienced an opposite. As Asian, you are probably more positively discriminated into a junior role. But go above, no. But if you are a senior hire, you feel someone just wanted an Asian face on the boardroom web page, or to make the air of an Asian engineer ran company by showing off TW hires engineering creds.
hist78
Well-known member
Sometimes, I am not sure what people think, believe, or assume a good workplace should be. Intel is laying off 15,000 or more employees before Christmas. Not too long ago, however, Intel was ranked as one of the best places to work. Will those current and former Intel employees think differently now? Do they deserve to be let go? What lessons can we learn from this?
tooLongInEDA
Moderator
I understood that Intel's and layoff handling was quite good and the severance terms were actually pretty generous and likely well above the average for US companies (and certainly nothing like some of the awful stuff I've heard about IBM). Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong there. But that might actually qualify Intel as a "good workplace" given that most tech companies do go through layoff phases. Credit where it's due here.
siliconbruh999
Well-known member
Corporate layoffs keep happening it is how the culture is in west intel is doing it out of necessity Google/Microsoft just does it out cause they can doesnt mean they are not highly ranked
Artificer60
Well-known member
I believe somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 of the 15K employees took the voluntary severance package that was offered. That would lead me to believe that the severance package was enough that folks thought it would tide them over until they found something else. I've also heard that the involuntary severance package was comparable to the voluntary package. Clearly no one wants to lose their job, especially around the holidays, but I think Intel handled the layoff about as well as it could have been.
The last time TSMC did a layoff the CEO was fired. 
One company I worked for had a goal of 5% layoff every year because hiring is imperfect, there is no such thing as 100% effective hiring. They were not wrong but it seemed harsh and yes they did it at the end of the year.
A CEO has to look at the greater good of the company. Clearly Pat's optimism did not pay off this time but in my experience if you do not make mistakes you are not trying hard enough.
One company I worked for had a goal of 5% layoff every year because hiring is imperfect, there is no such thing as 100% effective hiring. They were not wrong but it seemed harsh and yes they did it at the end of the year.
A CEO has to look at the greater good of the company. Clearly Pat's optimism did not pay off this time but in my experience if you do not make mistakes you are not trying hard enough.
The old Jack Welch way. Amazon does the same thing - they call it unregretted attrition.The last time TSMC did a layoff the CEO was fired.
One company I worked for had a goal of 5% layoff every year because hiring is imperfect, there is no such thing as 100% effective hiring. They were not wrong but it seemed harsh and yes they did it at the end of the year.
A CEO has to look at the greater good of the company. Clearly Pat's optimism did not pay off this time but in my experience if you do not make mistakes you are not trying hard enough.
I agree it's not without some merits, but it does create some unintended side effects. For example if I'm a manager and I know I need to fire 5% every year, it creates an incentive to do hire-to-fire, which basically means hiring people I know I'm going to fire in order to protect the rest of my team.
Lorien
Member
30 years prioritizing DEI & identity politics over meritocracy. It's a race to the bottom to see who is the biggest victim.
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TSMC way is really their way or the highway.
Pretty clear in how the evaluate employees work, commitment or future value to the company.
There are a likely a few non Taiwanese that find this works for them but given the fact their salary in the US isn’t the same premium above similar work many locals can find they will for the most part see much higher attrition. Manufacturing chips is hard, unforgiving, precision beyond belief, and tedious and high pressure. It’s no wonder few can be successful at it and none in the west.
How they measured commitment and good work was / is foreign and is it successful yes, is it the only way not necessarily but it’s the TSMC.
If you probe deeper even among the Taiwanese few love the environment but if you look at their compensation versus the alternatives nothing come close. Yeah you can be proud of the company and what your team and family accomplish but I feel sad for all the engineers families and spouses. Yeah they are money rich and vacation rich but the classical American dreams of dinners with your family, participate little league or soccer games or boss accepting you WFH after a doctors appt or because a plumber is coming are all strikes against against you or must give up.
Probe deeper and and it’s like for 10% pay difference is that worth the sacrifice for money and reward? For the Taiwanese it’s like 30% plus pay so for those willing to work in an army get paid and win at the cost of everything else a good trade off? Maybe they all send their kids to great overseas colleges and almost none every want their child to work at TSMC says it all about what it is like.
BTW it is absolutes true things said in the office and practices and verbal as wells as behavior can and should be considered discrimination and harassment and public verbal humiliation and none is stoppped
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