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Micron Technology's Taoyuan union announced a one-day strike on October 22, demanding the company provide a clear plan for annual bonuses and employee profit sharing. The actual impact of the strike on production and memory supply remains to be seen. The image shows a schematic of Micron's Taiwan plant.

Micron Technology's Taiwan Taoyuan union has announced a one-day strike on Oct. 22, demanding that the company present a specific annual one-time bonus plan and establish a transparent, predictable employee profit-sharing system. The action marks a further escalation of the labor dispute at Micron's Taiwan operations.

According to a Reuters report published Oct. 20, the Taoyuan union said it hoped the strike would pressure the company to put forward a profit-sharing plan acceptable to employees. It stressed that the action was a warning strike, rather than an end to negotiations. The union also said it remained willing to sign an agreement if the company offered acceptable terms.

The dispute centers on the employee bonus and profit-sharing system. Mediation between the Taoyuan union and the company previously ended without an agreement, leading union members to authorize a strike earlier in October. The Micron plant in Taichung has a separate union, which will also enter mediation on Oct. 22. At the time of the Reuters report, the Taichung union had not decided whether to call a strike.

Micron said it respected employees' legal right to take action and pledged to continue negotiating in good faith with the Taoyuan and Taichung unions to seek a solution acceptable to all sides. President Lai Ching-te had also previously called on the company and its employees to negotiate sincerely.

Micron has major memory production and operating sites in Taiwan. Its products include dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which are widely used in AI servers and data centers. The company has about 15,000 employees in Taiwan and says its investment in Taiwan has exceeded NT$1.6 trillion.

The impact of the strike on actual output and the supply chain remains unclear. With demand for memory products being driven by AI infrastructure, the progress of subsequent labor negotiations and the possibility of a larger-scale work stoppage will be closely watched by the industry.