Ahead of Two-Year Anniversary of CHIPS and Science Act, Senators Markey, Warren, Sanders, Luján Urge Commerce Department Go “All In” on Chips Workers’ Rights, Community Safety,[...]

Letter Text (PDF)

Washington (August 7, 2024) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) today wrote a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, urging the agency to ensure recipients of Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act incentives maintain high standards for worker welfare, community safety, and environmental health. The Department of Commerce is currently finalizing agreements to distribute $53 billion in manufacturing grants under the CHIPS and Science Act. Semiconductor manufacturing has been historically linked to the exposure of nearby communities to toxic chemicals; greenhouse gas emissions; and safety and mistreatment concerns for workers.

The Senators wrote, "In the ongoing 'due-diligence phase' of the grant distribution process, before agreements are finalized, the Department must impose clear and enforceable conditions on grantees to ensure that workers, community members, and the environment are protected and that the grantees fairly engage with any worker efforts to unionize. Federal funding for chips manufacturing must catalyze worker and community safety, strong, union jobs, and environmental sustainability - not pose new harms to communities."

The Senators continued, "Now, as the Department finalizes its grant agreements and completes the due diligence process with awardees, the agency must turn these promises into action. The Department must prove that it is 'all in,' not only on reshoring the industry, but also on worker, climate, and environmental justice."

Reshoring the semiconductor industry is vital to the U.S. economy. However, without proper standards, the industry poses risks to worker and community safety, the environment, and worker unionization efforts. Senators Markey, Warren, Sanders, and Luján argue that with unprecedented public investment from the CHIPS and Science Act, the Department of Commerce should ensure these companies are adhering to the highest possible standards in these areas before finalizing grant agreements. In particular, the Senators urged the Department of Commerce to require companies to make the following commitments:

1. Transparency on Use of Chemicals: Commerce should require grantees to be transparent with the Department, workers, unions, and the public about the chemicals and chemical combinations used in the chip manufacturing process.
2. Worker Health-and-Safety Groups: Commerce should require grantees to establish worker-led, democratically elected health-and-safety groups where workers can express concerns free from retaliation.
3. Right to Organize: Commerce should require grantees to adopt policies that defend workers' right and ability to organize.
4. Interagency Expertise for Wage and Benefits Standards: Commerce should intimately involve the Department of Labor during the due-diligence phase to ensure that grant recipients are adhering to the "Good Jobs Principles" that the Department of Labor and Department of Commerce agreed to cooperatively promote.
5. Community Benefit Agreements: Commerce should require grantees to adopt policies that protect community health and defend communities' ability to engage in health- and safety-related organizing, including through Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) between fenceline communities and grantees.
6. Renewable Energy Commitments: Commerce should require that grantees power their chip manufacturing operations with new dedicated renewable energy, located nearby or onsite, to mitigate the impact of federally funded projects on air quality and the climate.

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