CHIPS Communities United and our member unions and community-based organizations express our support for the Micron workers in Taiwan who are seeking profit-sharing in their negotiations with Micron’s management.
Micron’s AI windfall: Micron has been a major beneficiary of the AI boom and the data center build-out. The tight supply for AI-optimized memory has allowed the company to command higher prices and lock in multiyear agreements with customers. Micron’s 2026 full-year revenue is estimated at $129 billion, with revenue up 245% YOY. In the most recent quarter, the company’s revenue was over $40 billion, more than three times higher than the same quarter last year, with gross margins surging to 85%, up from 37% a year ago.
Workers left out: But workers have not benefited from the company’s extraordinary bonanza. Micron distributes bonuses to its employees through a complex formula called the incentive pay plan (IPP), an opaque scheme that ignores the growth in profits, subjects workers to a hidden “company performance achievement rate,” and arbitrarily caps bonuses that workers are eligible for. Micron’s two unions – Micron Technology Taiwan Union (based in Taoyuan) and the Micron Memory Taiwan Union (based in Taichung) – have called for replacing the convoluted IPP system with a just and transparent profit-sharing system that would distribute 15% of the company’s profits to workers.
In the midst of negotiations with the unions, Micron management unilaterally proposed a one-time bonus amounting to just 4-5% of company profits for 2026, with no commitment to convert the unfair IPP system into a profit-sharing program for workers.
Solidarity: CHIPS Communities United, a US coalition of labor unions and community-based organizations, stands in solidarity with all workers at Micron, both in Taiwan and around the world. The memory chips that power the AI boom are designed and built by working people – from Boise, Idaho to Taoyuen and Taichung, Taiwan. Micron workers are generating billions of dollars in profits for the company and deserve to share in the fruits of their labor. Under the circumstances, distributing 15% of the company’s profits to workers, while reserving 85% for shareholders and capital reinvestment, seems like a modest demand.
This labor dispute takes place against the backdrop of significant anti-union activity and unfair labor practices by Micron in Taiwan. As the largest foreign-invested enterprise in Taiwan and an American company that has publicly committed to “drive equitable pay,” Micron must do better by its employees. Without them, there are no chips, no data centers, and no AI. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Taiwanese Micron workers and call on the company to meet the unions’ demands.
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