Questions are being raised about TSMC Arizona plant safety, after multiple accidents, near-misses, and claims of a faked active shooter drill to cover up the evacuation needed for a dangerous gas leak.
One union rep says that the plant – which is set to make chips for Apple – is “easily the most unsafe site” he’s seen in 17 years …
Plant long been contentious for financial reasons
TSMC first announced its plans to build one or more chip plants in Arizona back in 2020, with an initial investment of $12B. It was claimed that 1,600 US jobs would be created, including those in a local supply chain.
Within a month of the announcement, it was revealed that the company was seeking huge subsidies from the US government in order to proceed. Apple supported this bid for subsidies, lobbying on TSMC’s behalf. The Cupertino company later said that the plant would make chips for Apple’s devices, though only for older ones.
Those subsidies looked set to get paid through the CHIPS Act, a $50B program to promote chip fabrication within the US – but there have been questions about value for money, with TSMC demanding twice as much cash as initially offered.
Now, however, it seems it’s not just the finances coming under the microscope …
Now TSMC Arizona plant safety questioned
A report in Prospect claims that construction safety standards are unacceptable.
The Prospect was told of multiple accidents involving loads being dropped from cranes. For example, according to Butler, a piece of carbon steel pipe over 40 feet in length and weighing over eight tons was dropped from 160 feet in the air. In another incident, according to a worker who asked not to be named, a 20-inch piece of carbon steel was dropped off a crane and hit a worker.
A man in his sixties fell off an A-frame ladder and broke both of his legs, according to one person familiar with the incident. Others described at least two cases in which workers have fallen through badly marked scaffolding. One man in his twenties, on a work visa from Mexico, reportedly fell through flooring to the level below, a more than 30-foot drop.
According to one person who heard about the incident indirectly, the worker “lost his spleen, he broke his wrist, he broke five ribs, and ended up having to be in the hospital.” The worker added, “They said he was going to be OK, he will be able to go back to work. I heard he’s from Mexico and the GC or whoever was in charge of that scope was paying for him to stay in a hotel and make sure that he heals up.”
One union member says that TSMC tried to cover up a dangerous gas leak by claiming that the evacuation was for an active shooter drill.
Josh Wakeham, business director for Arizona Local 469, the pipefitters union, described one memorable incident. “People were told that there was an active-shooting drill, and they were running, and [told] to evacuate the area. So our guys got out of the area. And they found out later that it was a gas leak. And they were just trying to hide that. So no one trusts them,” Wakeham said. “It’s their culture of ‘Hey, we’re not trying to slow down any productivity, get back to work, nothing to see here.’”
One issue is said to be that TSMC hires very few workers directly, so that legally-mandated accident reports are filed with dozens of different contractors, not with the chipmaker. This makes it very difficult to see the true scale of the number of accidents at the site.
There have even been claims of two deaths at the site, though one of these was described as a drug overdose. The other was said to be a worker who removed the safety guard from an 8-inch grinder, and then slipped, severing his femoral artery, and bleeding to death. Neither report could be confirmed.
The piece includes video footage of a fire, in which workers seemed unclear how to respond.
Photo: Josh Olalde/Unsplash (stock construction site photo)
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