By Wen-Yee Lee
TAIPEI, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Micron Technology’s labour unions in Taiwan representing two-thirds of its workers said they were moving toward a possible strike unless the U.S. memory-chip maker agrees to overhaul its bonus system and adequately share its profits.
The two unions representing Micron workers in Taoyuan and Taichung said in a written response to Reuters that they had close to 10,000 members among roughly 15,000 workers at Micron facilities in the two cities. More than 80% of members who took part in an internal online survey in August backed strike action, they said.
Micron’s Taiwan office said in response to a request for comment from Reuters that this year’s performance-bonus payout would be the highest in the company’s history.
It said it would continue dialogue with employees through existing channels while respecting applicable legal processes.
The strike threat comes as booming demand for memory chips used in artificial-intelligence hardware has tightened global supply and lifted profits across the sector.
A work stoppage at Micron, the world’s third-largest memory-chip maker, would be highly disruptive as Taiwan is the company’s largest manufacturing base globally, according to authorities in Taipei, who say Micron has invested NT$1.4 trillion ($43.9 billion) in the island and produces DRAM and high-bandwidth memory chips there.
The dispute echoes a showdown at Samsung Electronics in South Korea, where a planned 18-day strike by as many as 48,000 union members was called off in May after last-minute negotiations.
That deal created a special bonus pool worth 10.5% of the chip division’s operating profit, subject to profitability targets.
Micron’s Taiwanese unions said profit-sharing arrangements at Samsung and SK Hynix had widened the gap between Micron workers and their South Korean peers.
(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee in Taipei; Writing by Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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