Micron Technology unions in Taiwan threaten strike over bonus disputes

Labor unions representing approximately 10,000 Micron Technology employees in Taiwan are preparing for potential strike action following dissatisfaction with the company’s bonus structure. Workers at the Taoyuan and Taichung facilities report that the current Incentive Performance Pay (IPP) system is opaque and fails to reflect the company’s recent record profits driven by the global AI boom and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) demand.

The unions are demanding a transparent profit-sharing mechanism similar to industry competitors. They cited Samsung’s practice of allocating 10.5% of operating profit to bonuses and SK hynix’s 10% allocation as benchmarks. In Taiwan, competitors like TSMC allocate 4.7% of net profit to bonuses.

Mediation sessions are scheduled for late August and mid-September. If these negotiations fail, a strike vote could occur as early as September. Because Taiwan serves as a critical manufacturing hub for Micron, accounting for roughly 60% of its global production capacity and key HBM manufacturing, a successful strike could disrupt the global AI data center supply chain and cause volatility in the DRAM and HBM markets.