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That’s not the full story at all. No argument that this administration is a disaster on hundreds of metrics but it’s not clear what’s going on here. At a glance
by CPLX 1y ago
That’s not the full story at all. No argument that this administration is a disaster on hundreds of metrics but it’s not clear what’s going on here. At a glance it’s at least possible that this was a pro-US worker policy.
The Asian high tech companies have a history of falsely claiming US workers just aren’t smart enough to do the job when in fact what they really want is to have their own workers come in and work triple overtime at slave wages. It was a huge issue with the TSMC build in Arizona.
If they brought people in to do construction work on either tourist visas or B1 meeting type visas that’s illegal and should be and what happened here makes perfect sense.
Of course enforcing pro-labor laws against multinationals isn’t exactly what this admin is known for, so it’s probably a fuck up. But until we know the details we don’t know.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago> Of course enforcing pro-labor laws against multinationals isn’t exactly what this admin is known for, so it’s probably a fuck up. But until we know the details we don’t know. It is pretty obvious now that the Korean sub-contractors thought they were above board on the proper visas for the consulting work that was being contracted. Now, whether that was actually true or not will take a few years of litigation to figure out, since visa law is complicated. If they were doing custom specialized work (that is definitely allowed by ESTA/B1), then the visas were correct. If they were hammering nails into wood, then the visas were incorrect. See https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-us-georgia-raid-hyundai-24d990562f5ac20e7d3e983a77a4f7ff https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-us-georgia-raid-hyund...
- CPLX 1y agoThat's not obvious at all. The image in the article you're linking to shows people with hardhats and vests that say "mechanic" on them. Not only that there's a long history of asian high tech conglomerates taking shortcuts on these kinds of projects: https://prospect.org/labor/2023-06-22-tsmc-semiconductor-factory-phoenix-accidents/ https://prospect.org/labor/2023-06-22-tsmc-semiconductor-fac... Including this specific one: https://www.enr.com/articles/60802-third-fatality-recorded-at-hyundais-76b-metaplant-in-georgia https://www.enr.com/articles/60802-third-fatality-recorded-a... So maybe, maybe not. The fact that the attorneys for the accused deny it isn't exactly dispositive.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoYes, the USA is a PITA for foreign countries to setup factories in, as the Japanese and the Germans learned before, the Taiwanese are learning now, and that's why they prefer to just do setup factories in China instead. I'm also pretty sure we are screwed in manufacturing because our labor is just too expensive and unskilled/unproductive to justify the price. But that is another issue entirely.
- CPLX 1y agoYou’re using “pain in the ass” as a euphemism for “has labor laws and higher wages” which is a longstanding PR move that’s been going on forever. They prefer to setup factories overseas because they like paying lower wages. Productivity in the US is incredibly high. Our decision to allow manufacturing to be shipped overseas is a political one. We don’t have to care what companies feel like doing. We have the customers and the money. We can insist.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> You’re using “pain in the ass” as a euphemism for “has labor laws and higher wages” which is a longstanding PR move that’s been going on forever. You are using “euphemism” as a euphemism for “dysphemism”. (Or, more likely, just using the wrong word; I doubt you are really intentionally trying to put a positive spin on it.)
- CPLX 1y agoNow this is the kind of pedantry I was worried had vanished from HN. Bravo.