The power they have over the "corporate" entity is a function of what they have to offer relative to everyone else. A few decades ago when US corps made everything and the rest of the world bought them they could demand high paying union jobs and get them. The cost of this was subsidized by buyers from around the world and cheap input material and energy corps could get due to US's geopolitical position.

That ship has sailed.

Now they have to be more in line with the rest of the world.

What the "corporation" can offer and survive or stay ahead of the pack is a function of choices available to it. Which are different now than decades ago.

This myth that Americans can demand better things that the rest of the world can't needs to die. If they want to work less, great! They can. They need to become more efficient and produce more goods with less labor. Otherwise people in other countries will not want to trade with them. That is reflected to the American worker through the set of jobs and work conditions available to them.

Workers have to compete with everyone else in the world. If a company employs American workers who demand high wages to do the same work that international workers do for less pay that company will fail. The economy is a competition, companies can't just give away money.

> The economy is a competition, companies can't just give away money.

And this article makes that point very salient, as does antiunion drives at many companies. Say it costs me X to run a PR campaign about lazy workers or hire an antiunion consulting firm. It might cost me Y to raise pay, hire more workers, and/or improve working conditions. If X is less than Y and achieves the same effect - I do X, if Y is less, I do Y.

Employees are allowed to make employers compete as well. This is HN, like the home of the switch companies regularly in silicon valley & silicon valley was created because no non-competes.

In a flush labor market, employees compete for jobs from companies. In a tight labor market companies might have to compete (and treating workers better/paying more is a form of competing). If you don't want to compete by paying more, you can compete by accepting lower quality - just like if I go buy a product from a company or its competitors.

The strident defenses of the poor companies having to compete for labor being unfair is just such a strange narrative to me but one that has weaseled its way into a lot of the American subconscious.

If TSMC did know enough about American semiconductor employee work culture before investing $12 Billion in a new factory that they are surprised by this that's on them. If we accept your claim about American workers demanding higher wages than international workers for the same effort, then TSMC certainly knew that going in. TMSC isn't some innocent and naïve child...but they did build near Intel's castle hoping (it seems) to extract intellectual capital. A lot of those ex Intel-ers leave because of burnout and may have a shorter tolerance for BS than TSMC. TSMC is one of the top 10 employers in Taiwan, maybe that was something they didn't consider the influence of that in their work culture enough?

My suspicion is that this is an effectively planted article as part of a drive for better incentives by TSMC. This stinks of Foxconn and Wisconsin.

The engineers at this TSMC plant will get what they want. TSMC knows that which is why they wrote this article. The people who are really fucked are the blue collar workers whose job is moving to a sweatshop in south east asia.

except if it were solely up to TSMC this fab would not even exist. this whole project is a product of US pressure on Taiwan, as they would have much more leverage over the US if they kept their semiconductor expertise to themselves. let's not pretend the US would be so gung-ho if it weren't for TSMC, Taiwan provides little value otherwise

It’s not like TSMC is unfamiliar with government efforts in support of key industries.