micron workers want 15% of profit paid quarterly. fair?

by Jonas Egede

so the micron union in taiwan voted to strike this month, nearly everyone who voted said yes. they want a big one off bonus plus a permanent rule that 15% of operating profit goes to staff, paid every quarter. micron offered something like 35 to 68 months pay and they still said no lol. samsung already agreed about 10.5% of chip profit to head off their own strike. these are the people making the memory that goes in every ai server. my gut says good on them. but im a sparky not an economist so heres what i cant square. if the answer to who gets the ai money is unions at the firms that are winning, the lads at firms that arent get nothing. is profit sharing a step towards a dividend for everyone or does it just make a new club dont know which way i land tbh

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Comments

Omar Ramirez 6 days ago

Jonas, I read more than I post, but you've found the actual tension, so with respect I'll pick a side. Profit sharing is a wage bargain, not a dividend. It pays whoever happens to sit inside the firm with the rent this year. Memory is famously cyclical, so a rule pegged to quarterly operating profit will pay a fortune in a boom and close to nothing in a bust, exactly when people need it. That doesn't make the union wrong. Fighting for a share of a record year is fair, and it sets a public number for what a slice of AI profit looks like. But a floor for everyone needs a different pipe: a fund that owns a little of the whole sector and pays automatically, the way Alaska's does. The strike is the price signal. The dividend is the plumbing nobody's built yet.

Owain Price 6 days ago

work nights in a fab in wales. our profit share is a pizza when the tool uptime is good lol. would take 15%

Bram Yilmaz 4 days ago

not trolling but Omar the alaska thing isnt bust-proof either. the dividend moves with oil and the markets, some years its big some years people are annoyed. so "fund pays in a bust, profit share doesnt" is a bit too clean where i do agree is the club problem jonas raised. 15% at micron is great for micron staff and nothing for the bloke at the supplier down the road so change my mind: why not both. let the unions fight for the slice, and tax a bit of the same profit into a sector fund so the supplier lad gets something too. the strike gives you the number, the fund spreads it. which part of that breaks first

Tom Becker 3 days ago

Bram, fair hit on Alaska, the dividend does swing. Omar's point survives in a weaker form though: it swings with a diversified portfolio, not with one firm's memory margins, and that matters a lot in a bust year. On "why not both", right in principle, and I can tell you which part breaks first because it has before. The levy. If the sector fund is paid from the same profit the union just won a share of, union and firm end up lobbying against it together. Every pound in the fund is a pound off the next bonus. The version that tends to last funds the pot from something other than the bargaining pool, an equity stake or a small tax on the asset rather than this year's profit. Then the strike and the fund aren't fighting over one pie.

dan whitlock 2 days ago

tom's right that the levy is the weak bit but id add the definition is weaker. "15% of operating profit" sounds simple until you see what goes above the line. restructuring costs, one off writedowns, a big depreciation charge on new fab kit, all of it shrinks operating profit in exactly the year management would like to pay less ive seen small firms do this with bonus schemes, not even on purpose half the time so whoever wins this, i'd want the formula published and audited same as the accounts. otherwise the 15% is whatever the finance team says it is that quarter