In short
Micron's Taoyuan union is voting until October 6th on whether to give itself the right to strike. The members are asking for 15% of the operating profit. One quarter alone would be approximately $6.6 billion. Micron's two Korean rivals have already agreed to a published share. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'd work out what percentage Micron is comfortable giving to their employees and propose that, including a profit threshold and a fixed term.
What is Micron's union asking for?
Micron's Taoyuan union is asking its members whether to give itself the right to strike. Voting is open until Tuesday, October 6th. The members are asking for 15% of Micron's operating profit, paid quarterly, for all employees globally. Most of Micron's DRAM output in fiscal 2025 came from its Taiwan fabs. On Wednesday it reported $43.75 billion of GAAP operating income for the quarter that ended September 3. At 15%, that one quarter alone would be approximately $6.6 billion, which is before netting out what Micron currently pays in incentive compensation.
What did Samsung and SK hynix agree?
For background, its two Korean rivals have already established a precedent by agreeing to a published share. Samsung set aside a pool of 10.5% of chip division operating profit in stock for ten years, but only in years when chip division operating profit tops KRW 200 trillion ($147 billion), or KRW 100 trillion ($74 billion) from 2029, plus 1.5% in cash, about 12% in total by JPMorgan's estimate; and SK hynix pays 10% of operating profit with no cap, under a ten-year deal. Micron is the only one of the three without a published profit-sharing formula. For fiscal year 2026 it offered Taiwanese production staff total rewards worth 35 to 68 months of salary, base pay included, with a one-time NT$1 million ($31,000) cash payment on top, for any staff hired by August 29, 2025.
SK hynix's revision failed by 25 votes in August over a 40% cash and 60% stock share mix, then passed in September with half paid in cash. At Samsung, only 21.1% of one union's voters backed the deal, mostly non-chip staff left with a smaller share. The deal averted a planned 18-day strike and passed with 73.7% overall. In both votes, the fight was over how the money was paid and who was left out of the scheme.
HOW THE THREE MEMORY MAKERS PAY THEIR CHIP WORKERS
Profit-sharing terms as of 1 October 2026
| Term | Samsung (chip division) | SK hynix | Micron (Taiwan) |
|---|---|---|---|
| What employees get | 10.5% of chip operating profit in stock, plus 1.5% in cash | 10% of operating profit | No published profit share; FY2026 total rewards 35 to 68 months' pay, base included |
| Cap | None on the pool | 1,000% cap removed (2025) | Bonus capped at 200% of target under current plan |
| Profit threshold | Only when chip operating profit tops KRW 200T (2026-28), KRW 100T (2029-35) | None | n/a |
| Paid in | Stock, locked 1 to 2 years; 1.5% in cash | Cash and stock (2026 revision) | Cash and stock; one-time NT$1M cash on top |
| Term | 10 years | 10 years | FY2026 plan |
| Where it stands | Ratified 27 May 2026, 73.7% | Revised deal passed 16 Sep 2026, 57.08% | Strike-rights vote 1 to 6 Oct; board gets proposals 8 Oct |
Sources: Taipei Times (2026-05-22); Korea Herald (2025-09-04, 2026-05-27); JoongAng Daily (2026-09-16); AFP via Jakarta Post (2026-09-11); Focus Taiwan (2026-09-11); Liberty Times (2026-08-01); UDN (2026-09-21, 2026-09-24).
On Wednesday's call, Micron said it raised the fiscal year 2026 incentive pay for every global team member and expects fiscal year 2027 will be higher. So, they are already planning to pay a global price, but without a published formula anyone can check. Singapore law does not allow sympathy strikes, and Malaysia reported no strikes from 2020 to 2024, but staff there read the same news from Korea, meaning the result of this negotiation could have spillover effects to the other plants.
In both votes, the fight was over how the money was paid and who was left out of the scheme.
Why is Taiwan different?
In Taiwan, part of the answer is already covered under the law. Article 235-1 of the Company Act requires every Taiwanese company, including Micron's two Taiwan entities, to set a fixed amount, or ratio of its own annual profit for employee compensation in its articles. Many companies write it as a minimum. TSMC's articles say not less than 1%, UMC's not less than 5%.
Bonuses are a big part of pay in Taiwan tech companies, and people expect a share of the profit. Computer and electronics makers paid an average year-end bonus of 3.54 months, against 1.7 months across all industries. TSMC paid about NT$2.63 million ($83,000) per Taiwan employee in bonus and profit sharing for 2025.
Strikes, on the other hand, are rare. Listed companies had 16 strike announcements in 20 years and 4 actual stoppages. A strike needs a yes vote from more than half of all union members, by secret ballot. Micron's Taoyuan site has about 2,800 staff, of whom roughly 1,400 are union members, and more than 80% of those surveyed in August backed a strike. The larger Taichung union, which has about 8,300 members, is not part of this vote.
Did the pay formulas drive profit?
Micron, SK hynix and Samsung's chip division all lost money at the operating line in 2023. According to their latest reported periods, all three have operating margins in the high 60s to mid-70s. The ranking among them means little because Micron's figure is for its fiscal year, and the Korean figures are for the first half of 2026.
SK hynix has tied its profit sharing to operating profit since 2021. In the second quarter of 2026 it had 50% of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) revenue (Counterpoint estimates), against 33% for Samsung and 18% for Micron. Its operating margin last year was 48.6%. Samsung's chip division, which also carries its foundry and logic businesses, was at 19.1%. Whether the pay plan had anything to do with that, no one outside the company knows. Samsung's union said in April that more than 200 of its members had left for SK hynix in four months. In May, facing a planned strike, Samsung agreed to a formula with its unions, and members ratified it on May 27th.
How should a compensation committee manage this?
If I were reviewing a proposal like this, I'd ask management for two things. The first is a benchmark; I'd look at Samsung and SK hynix for the formula, and at TSMC and the broader Taiwan market to understand what people expect their take home pay to look like. The second is a test against a year similar to 2023, when Micron lost $5.7 billion on the operating line. A share of operating profit would have cost Micron nothing in a year like that. The exposure is any guaranteed minimum, such as the NT$1.7 million ($53,000) minimum in this year's offer, and what happens to people's income when the pool is zero. Samsung's chip division paid a 0% profit-based bonus for 2023 (a loss year), and in 2024 its union staged the first strike in the company's history. That is why I'd take the Korean structure, set Micron's own percentage, and add a profit threshold and a fixed term.
A share of operating profit would have cost Micron nothing in a year like that.
What I learned from writing incentive plans
I've written and executed incentive plans at two different companies. On the management side, the choice is between a pool you size every year during the annual budget planning and a change to the terms and conditions of the plan itself.
The old plan was one plan. Everybody was tied to the same metrics. A lot of it was based on purely revenue and profit, so the effect it had was more a company goal rather than incentives being given for department and/or individual performance. The problem is many functions in the company didn't have the ability to impact those two metrics. So, by not having individual KPIs, their incentive and motivation to work hard to help the company achieve was low. From a cultural perspective, depending on what country you're in, it has an even greater impact. In Europe, I'd say less so, because most pay there is set by collective agreements. In 2024 they covered 98% of workers in France and 92% in Spain. In the US, 11.2% of workers were represented by a union last year, so pay is set company by company and individual incentives carry more weight. This is similar to practices I've seen used across Asia.
I set up plans that had some team metrics to drive collective behavior to achieve the company targets, and even employees who were new, or weren't the top performers in the company, still had an opportunity to earn something extra beyond their salary, but it also didn't discourage the top performers in the company from going above and beyond, which is why we paid higher than 100% on those specific metrics. The weighting between company and individual KPIs depended on each person's function level. When I rebuilt the incentive plans, I replaced the team pool split by role factors with a published formula anyone could calculate on their own, with a floor, a cap at 200%, and a margin gate that protected the company. A profit share is the team metric. In my plans it sat next to individual KPIs, and that's the piece I'd want to see next to any formula at Micron if I were writing the plan.
The proposals go to the board on October 8th
Micron's US board will receive the proposals on Thursday, October 8th, two days after the vote closes. The union says it was told there is no room to adjust this year's plan. The board can keep this year's plan as it is, enlarge the pool, or set a formula for future years.
The real test of whatever Micron decides won't come this year. It will come in the next year like 2023, when the pool is zero and the company still needs the same people to stay.
If you've sat on a compensation committee that moved staff to a published profit share, how did you keep people through the first year it paid nothing?