Micron reaches deal with Taiwan union amid bonus dispute; October 22 strike still looms
Micron Technology said on Wednesday that it had reached a labour-management agreement with its Taichung union in Taiwan, ending a scheduled mediation process amid a wider dispute over employee bonuses and profit-sharing. The development comes as a separate union representing workers at the US chipmaker's Taoyuan operations prepares for a one-day warning strike on October 22 over demands for a clearer compensation framework.
Micron said both management and the Taichung union had agreed to withdraw from mediation scheduled for Wednesday. The company did not disclose the settlement's financial terms or indicate whether it would influence negotiations with its Taoyuan workforce.
The Idaho-based semiconductor manufacturer employs approximately 15,000 people in Taiwan and has invested more than T$1.6 trillion ($50 billion) on the island.
The Taoyuan union announced its planned walkout on Tuesday, accusing management of failing to provide a concrete response to demands concerning employee bonuses and profit-sharing.
Workers are seeking clarity on the percentage and amount of a one-off bonus for 2026, alongside a transparent framework for distributing future profits.
According to the union, Micron had asked workers to await an October 9 board meeting at its US headquarters but subsequently failed to present a substantive counterproposal.
The union secured the legal right to strike on October 7 after mediation ended without an agreement in September. Although it initially considered an unannounced walkout, it later opted to provide advance notice, describing the planned action as a warning rather than an end to negotiations.
It has indicated that it remains willing to sign an agreement if Micron presents acceptable terms.
The Taichung union, meanwhile, had not held a strike authorisation vote before Wednesday's settlement.
The Taoyuan union has also questioned how Micron calculates employee bonuses.
It cited the company's 2025 Incentive Pay Plan (IPP), under which the performance factor stood at 93.9%. This initially translated into a bonus equivalent to approximately 2.3 months' salary, before being increased to 2.6 months.
Workers have urged Micron to adopt compensation practices comparable to those of Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Winbond Electronics and TSMC.
In May, Samsung averted a strike by agreeing to allocate 10.5% of its semiconductor division's operating profit towards special employee bonuses, subject to profitability targets.
SK Hynix separately agreed last year to distribute 10% of annual operating profit through its employee profit-sharing programme, removing an existing cap on payouts.
The Taoyuan union wants a similarly predictable system that gives employees greater clarity over their share of Micron's earnings.
Micron's Taiwanese facilities manufacture dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), essential components used in artificial intelligence servers and data centres.
Taichung is Micron's largest manufacturing site in Taiwan. While the immediate production impact of the proposed Taoyuan stoppage remains uncertain, prolonged disruption could place additional pressure on memory chip supplies amid strong demand from AI infrastructure providers.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te last week urged Micron and its employees to negotiate "sincerely" while attending the opening of the company's second advanced packaging and testing facility in Taichung.
Lai called for stronger communication and mutual trust between management and workers, encouraging both sides to pursue a consensus through constructive negotiations.
Micron has maintained that it respects employees' legal rights and remains committed to discussions aimed at reaching mutually acceptable solutions.
Wednesday's agreement resolves the scheduled Taichung mediation, but the separate Taoyuan union's planned industrial action remains the next development to watch.
Sayantani Biswas is an assistant editor at Livemint with seven years of experience covering geopolitics, foreign policy, international relations and global power dynamics. She reports on Indian and international politics, including elections worldwide, and specialises in historically grounded analysis of contemporary conflicts and state decisions. She joined Mint in 2021, after covering politics at publications including The Telegraph. <br> She holds an MPhil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University (2019), with a specialisation in postcolonial Latin American literature. Her research examined economic nationalism through Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. She also writes on political language, cultural memory and the long shadows of conflict. <br> Biswas grew up in Durgapur, an industrial town in West Bengal shaped by migration, which drew families from across India to the Durgapur Steel Plant. As the only child in a joint family, she spent years listening—almost obsessively—to her grandparents’ testimonies of struggle, fear and loss as they fled Bangladesh during the Partition of 1947. This formative exposure to lived historical memory later converged with her training in Comparative Literature, equipping her to analyse socio-economic structures and their reverberations. <br> Outside the newsroom, she gravitates towards cultural history and critical theory, returning often to texts such as Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As a journalist, she is committed to accuracy, intellectual rigour and fairness, and believes political reporting demands not only clarity and speed, but historical depth, contextual precision, and a disciplined resistance to spectacle.
Get Latest real-time updates
Catch all the Business News , Corporate news , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More
✕
Wait for it…
Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.