Current and former TSMC employees, including its chief recruiting officer, have sued the company, accusing it of discrimination in hiring practices. The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, according to the plaintiffs, gave preference to employees who were citizens of Taiwan to the detriment of American workers.
Image source: tsmc.com
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Deborah Howington, director of human resources, last August. She claims to have witnessed HR create a workplace in which “non-Asian employees and non-Taiwanese nationals are subject to greater scrutiny than similarly situated Asian (including Taiwanese) employees.” Subsequently, about a dozen more TSMC employees joined the lawsuit.
TSMC’s human resources department in Taiwan sends the company’s U.S. division resumes of candidates who have already been vetted and are available to work in the U.S. The U.S. division then “simply hires these Asian/Taiwanese applicants even if no job openings were available in the U.S.,” the suit says. Knowledge of Mandarin or Chinese was indicated as desirable, even if it was not required by the position; this criterion was used to weed out employees who did not speak one of these languages and to limit their career advancement. The company’s visa-holding Taiwanese workers were used to eliminate union positions to the detriment of American employees, the plaintiffs allege.
Previously, media reported that TSMC was having difficulty adapting to American work culture – the company’s labor practices discouraged American workers, and in order to meet deadlines, it was forced to bring several hundred of its employees from Taiwan. To date, few actual CHIP Act payments have been made, and it is unclear whether discrimination lawsuits against American workers will affect the release of funds to the Taiwanese company.