Micron workers in Taiwan to strike as bonus talks with chipmaker fail

Micron workers in Taoyuan, Taiwan, are set to go on strike on Thursday, 22 October, after months of failed negotiations over how the US chipmaker shares its profits with employees.

The union announced the planned walkout on Monday, Reuters reported . It has not said how long the strike will last, but promised to provide more details on Thursday.

The strike is scheduled for the same day as a mediation meeting between Micron and a second union representing workers in Taichung, where the company operates its largest facility in Taiwan. The Taoyuan union wants Micron to present a concrete proposal on profit-sharing.

Both unions began preparing for industrial action in September. In a vote held from 1 to 6 October, 1,994 of the Taoyuan union’s 2,258 members backed a strike.

The dispute centres on bonuses rather than base salaries. The unions want Micron to allocate 15% of its operating profit to quarterly employee bonuses. Samsung and SK hynix, two of Micron’s South Korean rivals, already tie bonuses to company profits. Samsung faced its own strike threat over bonuses earlier this year.

Micron has tried to ease tensions with a substantial rewards package. In September, it announced benefits worth between 35 and 68 months of pay for its roughly 15,000 employees in Taiwan, Focus Taiwan reported. However, mediation with the Taoyuan union ended without an agreement that month.

The company has said it takes employees’ concerns seriously and maintains that the rewards package is separate from the ongoing dispute.

“We will continue to work through the established dialogue and mediation processes,” Micron said in a statement reported by Reuters earlier this month.

The dispute has also drawn attention from Taiwan’s government. Last week, President Lai Ching-te urged both sides to negotiate sincerely and in good faith as he opened a new Micron plant in Taichung, Reuters reported.

The stakes extend beyond the labour dispute. Taiwan is a key production base for Micron’s DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which are used in AI servers. The company says it has invested more than T$1.6 trillion ($49 billion) on the island and has warned that the current memory shortage could continue into 2028.

The Taichung union has yet to hold its own strike vote. If Thursday’s mediation fails, it could ask members to vote on industrial action, according to TrendForce.