Labor and Community Groups Urge Samsung to Use CHIPS Act Money to Benefit Community

Washington, DC – CHIPS Communities United (CCU) is urging Samsung, as a selected recipient of $6.4 billion in public funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce, to follow through on their pledged commitment for responsible labor, environmental, and community practices. CCU, a coalition of labor unions, environmental organizations, and community groups, advocates a fair, equitable, and sustainable implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act. 

Despite the major influx of funding, Samsung has yet to provide assurances that workers and the community in Austin and Taylor will have a fair deal. The company states in its Global Human Rights Principles, “Samsung recognizes the right of its own and business partners’ employees to form and join trade unions of their own choosing, to bargain collectively, and to engage in peaceful assembly,” yet it has not signed a project labor agreement with regional construction trades or a union-neutrality agreement for its permanent workforce.

Without enforceable agreements, workers have no guarantees that their rights to organize will be respected. That’s why our coalition is calling on Samsung to negotiate enforceable community benefits agreements (CBAs) with workers and residents in Austin and Taylor, Texas.

“Union workers know the difference between promises and a binding contract.” said Carl Kennebrew, president of the industrial division of the Communications Workers of America, IUE-CWA, which represents workers at one of the only unionized chip factories in the country. “As it stands to receive billions of public dollars, Samsung should be willing to sign on the dotted line and commit to its stated values.” IUE-CWA recently announced an agreement with a semiconductor company, Akash Systems, in Oakland, California. 

Despite Samsung’s purported commitments to “providing a safe and healthy workplace environment for its employees, contractors, and other business partners,…eliminating the risk of any harm to people from all our activities, and to keeping people healthy,” the company has committed numerous workplace health safety and environmental violations in the US and globally. Just last week, a crane boom fell at the construction site in Taylor. In 2021, 65,000 gallons of sulfuric and hydrochloric acid spilled from Samsung’s Austin facility into a tributary stream that leads to Harris Branch Creek and ends in the Colorado River. In Vietnam, reports from earlier this year reveal Samsung ignored health and safety concerns and failed to disclose toxic pollution at its facility near Hanoi for years, exposing workers and the public to dangerous chemicals. At its manufacturing facilities in South Korea, hundreds of factory workers have developed cancer after being exposed to dangerous chemicals at Samsung’s production facilities. 

“Public dollars should create public good,” said Rick Levy, President of the Texas AFL-CIO. “As Samsung expands its footprint here in Texas, the company needs to come to the table and sign an enforceable community benefits agreement that ensures construction and production workers have safe family-sustaining jobs, our community receives the investment it deserves, and our environment is protected.”

“Investments in semiconductor production must be aligned with the goals of the transition to clean energy, a healthy environment, and benefits for local communities,” said Cyrus Reed, PhD, Conservation Director of Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter. “Samsung’s mammoth Taylor, Texas operation is an energy and water glutton. In considering the multi-billion dollar subsidy, the U.S. Department of Commerce must hold Samsung accountable to conserve and reuse Texas’s precious water resources, eliminate contamination, reduce energy use through efficient cooling, energy storage, and onsite solar, and rely on 100% additional renewable electricity from the grid for the remainder of their energy needs.” 

Among semiconductor manufacturers, Samsung is rated the lowest for its climate commitments and renewable-energy use, according to a 2023 Greenpeace report. And in Texas, Samsung is involved in expanding Texas’s polluting gas export industry that harms local communities, warms the climate, and increases domestic energy prices. 

Jobs to Move America, another partner in the coalition, has extensive experience with community benefits agreements. "Community benefits agreements are one of the best ways out there to ensure that companies like Samsung live up to core values like respecting workers’ safety, health, and quality of life,” said Madeline Janis, co-executive director of Jobs to Move America. “We’ve negotiated a number of CBAs, and we’ve seen how they can be a powerful tool to ensure that communities and workers truly benefit from public investments.”