Micron and its Taoyuan union ended a third negotiating session without agreement on profit sharing. A bonus calculator and further talks are planned, while a reported US$3 billion to US$4.5 billion expansion pause remains unaddressed by the company.
A third negotiating session ended without agreement; a fourth is tentatively set for November 17.
Workers seek a defined share of profits, while Micron points to a separate agreement covering its larger Taiwan union.
A reported construction pause concerns future memory capacity; Micron says existing Taiwan operations continue normally.
Micron Technology, the U.S. memory-chip manufacturer with a long-established production base in Taiwan, and its Taoyuan workers’ union failed to resolve their profit-sharing dispute on November 6. Management is developing an employee bonus calculator, but the union says it still lacks the figures and legal explanation needed to assess the proposed arrangement.
The impasse comes after a report that Micron had largely stopped construction of Fab 11E, a Taoyuan expansion budgeted at US$3 billion to US$4.5 billion. Micron has said current operations are normal without directly answering whether construction is suspended. The dispute therefore leaves two distinct questions: what workers will receive from the company’s earnings, and whether its next increment of Taiwan capacity will proceed on schedule.
The Taoyuan union obtained strike authorization and staged a warning strike in October. A fourth negotiating session was tentatively scheduled for November 17. Source: PTS.
What the workers want—and what Micron has offered
The Taoyuan union said after the third negotiating session that Micron could not provide profit-sharing figures or specify the provisions of securities law behind its claimed restriction on disclosure. This is the union’s account of management’s position; the company statement quoted in that account did not explain the legal argument.
The union said a quarterly-bonus inquiry system was due online Monday, November 9, allowing about 60,000 employees worldwide to estimate their first-quarter payment under the new system. Taoyuan’s labor bureau, which is facilitating the negotiations, separately said Micron was developing the calculator at the union’s request and expected it online the following week.
The demand goes beyond being able to estimate a payment. A report on the dispute said the Taoyuan union wants Micron to distribute 15% of operating profit to employees globally, citing similar measures at South Korean memory rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The union also wants incentives paid entirely in cash rather than partly in stock. The report places those demands against workers’ efforts to share in record profits from the AI build-out; it does not establish that the rivals’ arrangements are identical.
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Editorial Team
Workers in both Taoyuan and Taichung had objected to an opaque profit-sharing mechanism. The Taoyuan union obtained strike authorization on October 7, and eleven union officials staged a 24-hour warning strike on October 22, according to the account of the dispute’s development.
Micron reached an agreement with its larger Taichung union in October, including a new quarterly profit-sharing bonus. Some rank-and-file workers nevertheless protested the process’s lack of transparency. The economic affairs ministry said Micron had already increased some compensation.
The ministry’s account of the Taichung agreement, quoted in the earlier report, put junior engineers’ prospective average annual compensation at NT$4 million and senior engineers’ at NT$6 million. These are the ministry’s descriptions of the package, not independently established payments; Micron had not disclosed the agreement’s terms.
That agreement is itself contested. The Taoyuan union said it was recruiting members from the Taichung body to form a larger organization, seek to annul the existing pact and reopen negotiations. An unidentified person familiar with the matter said Micron considered the agreement legally binding; the Taichung union chair also acknowledged its legality. The reporting establishes competing positions, not that an annulment has occurred or will succeed.
What the reported construction pause would affect
The construction report, based on people familiar with private deliberations, said executives were concerned about growing uncertainty, including the risk that a union agreement could be overturned. It said Micron had informed Taiwanese officials and a supplier of plans to suspend work. Taoyuan’s government, however, said it had not been notified of a suspension.
Those sources described construction as largely halted, with minor work continuing to make the site safe before a freeze. Fab 11E had previously been scheduled to begin operating in 2028. Its reported US$3 billion to US$4.5 billion budget included advanced equipment from Dutch semiconductor-equipment supplier ASML; the report did not say how much had already been spent.
The proposed facility would produce high-bandwidth memory, used in AI systems, and dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM. The report described it as smaller than giant modern fabs. It supplied no production-capacity figure or estimate of output lost to a delay, so the budget cannot establish the size of any future supply shortfall.
Micron’s response addressed existing production. In a statement quoted in the account of its response, the company said Taiwan operations were normal and expressed confidence in maintaining stable Taoyuan operations without disrupting customer service. It said it would continue talks and valued Taiwan’s role in its global business.
The Taoyuan union said it had taken no action that harmed operations and questioned why Micron, which was pursuing capacity expansion, would pause the project. Neither that argument nor Micron’s continuity assurance confirms the construction timetable.
A large Taiwan base, with investment alternatives elsewhere
Micron’s Taiwan presence predates the current AI-driven expansion. In December 2016, the company completed its acquisition of Inotera Memories, buying the equity it did not already own in a transaction valued at about US$4 billion, net of Inotera’s cash and debt. The announcement described closer alignment with Micron’s global manufacturing operations as an expected benefit.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, which has offered to help resolve the dispute, puts Micron’s cumulative investment on the island at NT$1.6 trillion and calls it an important foreign investor and AI-industry partner. The same account, citing the original construction reporting, says Taiwan makes about 60% of Micron’s traditional memory chips. That is a share of Micron’s output, not of global memory supply or of the proposed plant’s capacity.
The reported workforce figures also show why the two union negotiations carry different weight. Micron employs about 12,300 people in Taichung and 3,000 in Taoyuan, with roughly 11,000 and 2,400 union members respectively. Micron says the Taichung union represents the largest share of its Taiwan workforce and production. Its settlement nevertheless leaves the smaller Taoyuan union’s demands unresolved.
The Taiwan hub helps Micron compete with Samsung, SK Hynix and China’s CXMT. But Taiwan is only part of its expansion program: the construction report also describes investment in U.S. manufacturing and expansion in Japan and Singapore. Those projects provide context for Micron’s investment choices; the available evidence does not establish that capacity or spending from Fab 11E has been transferred to them.
The next talks must resolve more than a payout estimate
A fourth session is tentatively scheduled for the afternoon of November 17. The union wants to bring members’ views on the proposed arrangement and renew its requests for specific figures and legal provisions. A calculator could show an estimated payment while leaving the underlying profit-sharing rule disputed.
The economic affairs ministry has offered help with negotiations and has expressed support for the existing labor agreement. The immediate labor question is whether further disclosure and consultation produce an arrangement the Taoyuan union accepts.
The investment question requires a separate answer from Micron: whether Fab 11E is suspended, what conditions would allow construction to resume, and whether the previously reported 2028 opening remains achievable. The reports provide no revised opening date or quantified output impact.
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