Micron's Taoyuan Union Stages 24-Hour Strike as Taichung Union Settles

Micron's two Taiwan unions split within a day of each other: the larger Taichung union signed a labour-management agreement and dropped its mediation, while the Taoyuan union went ahead with the 24-hour strike it had promised — staged outside the plant, on a scale that has not been confirmed.

The Taoyuan union launched its 24-hour strike at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, Taiwan time, with the action expected to run until 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported. The agency said 11 union cadres participated in the strike; the union called on members for support and said it would poll members on the company's proposal before deciding its next steps. The actual scale of participation, beyond the cadres the agency cited, has not been confirmed, and no production impact has been established.

One site settles, the other walks

The launch came a day after the two disputes diverged. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Micron Memory Taiwan and the union representing workers at its Taichung operations said they had signed a labour-management agreement covering multiple issues, and both sides agreed to withdraw from the mediation scheduled for Oct. 22. The joint statement did not disclose the terms of the agreement, saying the company and the union would separately communicate details to affected employees in the coming days. Taichung is Micron's largest Taiwan operation.

Hours later, the Taoyuan union said it would proceed anyway. Its complaint was specific: after Wednesday's negotiations, the company still had not put numbers on the profit-sharing scheme it was proposing. So union representatives would stage a 24-hour strike outside the company's Taoyuan facility from 9 a.m. on Thursday, as planned. Micron said it "remains hopeful that both sides will continue their dialogue." Separate talks between the company and the Taoyuan union at the Taoyuan City Government on Wednesday also ended without agreement on the union's demands.

A fight over how artificial-intelligence profits are shared

The dispute is about bonuses and profit-sharing, not base pay. The Taoyuan union wanted a concrete offer on this year's one-off bonus and a transparent, predictable profit-sharing system for the future, and its demand has been reported as allocating 15% of operating profit to employees under an open, long-term mechanism. Mediation between Micron and the Taoyuan union ended without an agreement in September, and members authorised strike action in early October: 1,994 of the 2,012 members who voted backed the action, about 99% of votes cast and 88.3% of the 2,258 eligible members.

Two plants, two different jobs in the memory supply chain

Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan, and says it has invested more than T$1.6 trillion (about $50 billion) on the island. The Taoyuan plant employs about 3,000 workers, around 2,400 of them union members, and focuses on front-end wafer manufacturing for dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). Taichung, with about 12,300 workers, produces advanced DRAM and high-bandwidth memory chips and handles packaging and testing — the memory used in artificial-intelligence servers is the backdrop to the whole dispute, because the boom in that demand is what workers say should be shared more predictably. Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te, last week called on Micron and its workers to negotiate "sincerely."

What a one-day action outside the plant does not establish

TrendForce analyst Ellie Wang said the effect of the strike would depend on which production lines and key personnel were affected, and that a strike would not necessarily mean a full shutdown if maintenance, process monitoring and abnormality handling were adequately staffed. If the action lasts only one day and critical production remains normal, the impact on supply and global markets would likely be limited, she said. That is an assessment, not a measurement: no source has established that production stopped, that output was cut, or that shipments were affected, and Micron has not commented on the launch itself in the reporting available at publication.

What happens next

The union's member poll on the company's proposal is the next decision point, and the Taichung agreement's undisclosed terms are the other open question — whether that settlement contains a profit-sharing formula Taoyuan could accept, or a site-specific deal that leaves the two tracks apart, is not yet known. Micron's fiscal 2026 rewards package, announced on Sept. 11, offered each eligible Taiwan employee a one-off cash bonus of NT$1 million plus annual performance bonuses and stock awards; the union's position is that a one-off bonus cannot replace a long-term profit-sharing system. Until the poll and the Taichung details land, this is best read as a 24-hour warning backed by a real mandate — 1,994 votes in favour is not a symbolic show of hands — rather than as a supply event.