Another storage giant offers massive bonuses: Micron pays out bonuses up to 68 months' worth.

Micron Technology announced record bonuses for its employees in Taiwan, but the union refused to accept them and maintained its strike threat, marking a critical stage in the labor-management dispute.

Micron Technology announced on Friday that its employees in Taiwan will receive a bonus equivalent to 35 to 68 months of salary for fiscal year 2026, with a minimum cash compensation of NT$1.7 million (approximately US$53,800).

Micron stated that after an "extraordinary year for the company," more than 60,000 employees worldwide will receive rewards for fiscal year 2026, the highest level of compensation ever awarded to employees.

However, the Taoyuan union, representing approximately two-thirds of Micron's employees in Taiwan, issued a statement that day saying that the two sides had not yet reached a consensus during ongoing negotiations. The union still demanded that 15% of operating profit be allocated to employee bonuses and warned that:

If the company does not respond to the relevant demands, the union will continue to pursue the strike process.

Reward Scheme Details

According to Micron's disclosed plan, employees in Taiwan who join the company before August 29, 2025, will receive a cash bonus of NT$1 million (approximately US$31,700).

For junior engineers, the total reward averages NT$3.4 million, of which approximately NT$2.9 million is in cash and the remainder is calculated based on the value of stock grants. In addition, all employees will receive an annual stock grant.

Micron employs approximately 15,000 people in Taiwan, which is one of its most important production bases. The company has invested more than NT$1.6 trillion in Taiwan.

The union's core demand to date is to include 15% of operating profit in the employee bonus distribution mechanism, which remains a significant difference from Micron's current plan.

Micron's move is, to some extent, an attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes of its South Korean rival, Samsung Electronics.

According to reports, Samsung faced the threat of an 18-day strike by as many as 48,000 union members in May of this year. The crisis was averted by a last-minute agreement that established a special bonus pool equivalent to 10.5% of the chip division's operating profit.

Micron's Taiwan union had previously pointed out that the profit-sharing arrangements of Samsung and SK Hynix had widened the salary gap between Micron employees and their Korean counterparts, which was one of the core reasons for this labor dispute.

For the memory chip market, the stability of Taiwan, as Micron's core production base, is crucial. If the labor dispute continues to escalate or even evolves into a strike, it will directly impact Micron's production schedule and supply chain, thereby affecting the global memory chip supply landscape.

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