Workers at a Micron plant in Taiwan have voted to strike, amid labour unrest spurred by runaway profits at companies manufacturing components used in AI data centres.

The vast majority of members of the union representing workers at Micron’s plant in Taoyuan voted in favour of a strike, union secretary Chen Yen-kai told a press conference, after negotiations with management broke down.

Speaking at the event, union head Jerry Lin said details such as timing haven’t been decided, but he warned that action could be called at short notice via text message.

Soaring profits

Lin urged Micron to present a concrete proposal following its board meeting scheduled for the end of this week.

The union, as well as a separate body representing workers at Micron’s plant in Taichung, are seeking a one-off bonus equivalent to 83 months’ salary as well as a permanent allocation of 15 percent of the company’s operating profits to worker bonuses, to be distributed quarterly rather than annually.

Micron last month said it would give workers a one-off bonus of up to 68 months’ pay, which unions rejected.

The Taichung union remains in talks with Micron.

Together, the two unions represent some 12,000 of the 15,000 workers at the two plants. Micron makes about 50 to 60 percent of its chips in Taiwan.

The US company posted record revenue of about $133 billion (£100bn) for fiscal 2026, up 256 percent from $37bn a year earlier, amid surging demand for products such as DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, both key components of AI servers.

Micron said it remains committed to engaging with unions in good faith and would “continue to work through the established dialogue and mediation processes”.

Similar unrest has emerged in South Korea, where Samsung Electronics earlier this year agreed to distribute bonuses equivalent to 10.5 percent of operating profit to chip employees, in a last-minute deal to head off strike action.