CHIPS COMMUNITIES UNITED
Semiconductor Industry Letter
On October 24, 2023, CHIPS Communities United sent this open letter to the semiconductor industry, calling on semiconductor corporations receiving federal funding from the CHIPS Act to proactively pursue a productive and cooperative relationship with the communities hosting their facilities.
CHIPS Communities United
c/o Good Jobs First
1380 Monroe St NW, PMB 405
Washington DC 20010
Dear Semiconductor Industry Executives,
As you know, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act provides $52 billion in grants and loans to rebuild a sustainable domestic semiconductor industry and reinforce critical U.S. supply chains. Unfortunately, the Act doesn’t specify criteria for assuring that workers and communities impacted by this initiative also receive proportional benefits from this taxpayer funding.
Our new initiative — “CHIPS Communities United” — seeks to work with the semiconductor companies benefiting from these massive public subsidies to fill this void by ensuring that the promised economic and social benefits of the CHIPS Act are also realized for the workers and communities where facilities are sited.
Our concerns stem from the semiconductor industry’s well-documented history, starting in Silicon Valley and expanding globally, of polluting the environment, harming workers and their offspring as well as community residents, busting unions, avoiding taxes, and burdening host communities with significant problems.
Our goal is to avoid the problems of the past and achieve a new, higher standard of accountability as prioritized by the Biden Administration. Towards that end, we request each company subsidized by the CHIPS Act agree to comprehensive community benefits. CHIPS Communities United will assist local communities hosting new or refurbished facilities to meet with each company’s representatives to negotiate local agreements that should include:
- Training, recruitment, and job quality standards for a diversified workforce including measures such as pay equity and transparency, fair schedules, child care and other supportive services, and protections against discrimination and harassment, to ensure accessibility for and retention of women, people of color and other underrepresented populations;
- Respect for all semiconductor workers’ rights to organize, including subcontracted service workers; union neutrality agreements; and project labor agreements for all facility construction;
- State-of-the-art health and safety protocols; phasing out and safely substituting PFAS “forever chemicals;” replacing chemicals that can cause cancer, miscarriages, and/or fetal brain damage, and/or are persistent bioaccumulative and toxic; and where no safer substitutes exist yet, replace inadequate “permissible exposure limits” for hazardous chemicals with strong health-protective exposure standards;
- Review of facility design to ensure protection of air and water resources;
- Ambitious renewable energy commitments with high impact sourcing methods;
- Investment in public infrastructure.
In the spirit of the CHIPS Act appropriations language, we urge the semiconductor industry’s corporate leadership to lead the way for a productive and cooperative relationship with the communities hosting your facilities. We further urge you to designate representatives to meet with the local coalitions supported by our campaign to begin substantive community-based negotiations on the topics listed above.
We look forward to beginning this process of responsible and constructive community engagement. As a start, please respond to our letter by identifying your company representative with whom we should be in touch.
Sincerely,
The undersigned labor, environmental, social justice, civil rights, and community organizations:
- Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)
- Alaska Community Action on Toxics
- Arizona Center for Economic Progress
- Building & Construction Trades Council of Alameda County
- Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice
- Center for Development and Integration
- Center for Environmental Health
- Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
- Center for Public Environmental Oversight
- Center for Sustainable Neighborhoods
- Central Texas Interfaith
- Clean+Healthy
- CNY Solidarity Coalition
- Communications Workers of America (CWA)
- Community Labor United
- Construction Trades Workforce Initiative
- Defend Our Health
- Don’t Waste Arizona
- Ecology Center
- Environmental Working Group (EWG)
- Every Texan
- Fiscal Policy Institute
- Global Environmental Justice Project
- Good Jobs First
- GoodElectronics
- Green Science Policy Institute
- GreeningUSA
- Greenpeace USA
- Hazards
- HealthCare Without Harm
- International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT)
- Jobs to Move America
- Jobs With Justice
- Los Jardines Institute
- Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network
- Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water
- Minority Action Committee
- National Council for Occupational Safety and Health
- National Employment Law Project (NELP)
- National Women’s Law Center
- Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
- Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute
- Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation (Ohio Unity Coalition)
- Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU)
- Oregon Center for Public Policy
- Our Revolution
- Policy Matters Ohio
- RootsAction.org
- Safe Jobs Healthy Families
- Santa Clara University Environmental Justice & the Common Good Initiative
- Sierra Club
- SOH2O (Save Our Water)
- SolidarityINFOService
- Toxic-Free Future
- UNITE HERE
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Urban Jobs Task Force of Syracuse
- WH4C (Workers Hub For Change)
- Women’s Voices for the Earth
Letters were sent to the following semiconductor industry executives:
Dr. Thomas Caulfield, President and CEO
Global Foundries
400 Stonebreak Road Extension
Malta, NY 12020
Mr. Brett Robinson, President and CEO
Integra Technologies
3450 N. Rock Rd., Bldg #100,
Wichita, KS 67226
Mr. Pete Keegan, President
EMP Shield
3908 S. 4th Street,
Burlington, KS, 66839
Mr. Patrick Gelsinger, Chief Executive Officer
Intel Corp.
2200 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1549
Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO
Micron Technology, Inc.
8000 S. Federal Way
Boise, Idaho 83716
Mr. Haviv Ilan, President and CEO
Texas Instruments Inc.
12500 TI Boulevard, MS 8657
Dallas, TX 75243
Matt Johnson, President and CEO
Silicon Labs
2023 SIA Chair
400 West Cesar Chavez
Austin, TX 78701 USA
Mr. Thomas Sonderman, President and CEO
SkyWater Technology
2401 East 86th St.
Bloomington, MN 55425
Mr. David Keller, President and CEO
TSMC North America
2851 Junction Ave
San Jose, CA 95134-1910
Mr. Gregg Lowe, President and CEO
Wolfspeed
4600 Silicon Drive
Durham, North Carolina, 27703
Mr. K.S. Choi, President and CEO
Samsung North America
105 Challenger Road
Ridgefield Park, New Jersey 07660
Mr. John Neuffer, President and CEO
Semiconductor Industry Association
1101 K Street NW, Suite 450
Washington, DC 20005