In the same vein, I can’t help wondering a cultural disconnect is part of the problem. The fact that TSMC asked a union contractor to hire non-union workers implies that they didn’t understand how inflammatory that question would be to a union shop.
Asking that question is like lighting a fuse, so I’m not surprised by the reaction TSMC got. (IMHO, there are some good historical reasons for that reaction).
Also, American union culture can be fairly weird¹ , especially to outsiders encountering it for the first time.
I’ve been a member of the Teamsters, and I’ve also covered trade shows as a journalist where attendees were strictly forbidden from changing a burned-out lightbulb in their own booths.
Rather, they had to pay a union electrician $75 to do it for them. Not $75/hr—$75/bulb. (This was in Anaheim, CA in the late ‘90s). It often took a hour or two for the electricians to respond. And as they did the work, a few electricians were incredibly—and bafflingly—smug to the people working the booths.
Those people were often hourly or contract workers themselves; if that smug sanctimony was attempt to stick it to The Man, those electricians’ aim was crap
It was legitimately exasperating. I found myself exasperated for the vendors, even though I understood why that rule existed and didn’t have any lightbulbs to change.
Plus, union culture can be overtly hostile to perceived enemies, and significant parts of that culture have hair-trigger enemy detectors.
This is all to say that TSMC might simultaneously:
(a) have a real point about worker skill,
(b) have a weak understanding of American union culture,
(c) have some legitimate frustration with that culture, and
(d) be doing some fairly sketchy things to circumvent labor laws/union rules.
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¹ I obviously have mixed feelings about unions. They’re eager to remind us that they brought us the weekend—and they did!—but they’re somewhat less eager to remind us that they also brought us Derek Chauvin.
