Micron Technology has largely paused construction of its new Fab 11E memory plant in Taoyuan, Taiwan — a project budgeted at about $4.5 billion (yaani roughly $450 crore in Indian counting; about NT$150 billion) — because of a prolonged labour dispute with the local union, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Micron has notified Taiwanese officials and a supplier that construction is being suspended, the report said; only limited safety and maintenance work remains at the site, and that too will stop once it is completed.

Source: Bloomberg via BigGo Finance, Nov 5; Bloomberg via CNA, reported by Voltgrid, Nov 5

Micron has not confirmed the pause. In a statement responding to the reports, the US chipmaker said Taiwan plays an important role in its global manufacturing footprint, that its operations are currently proceeding as normal, and that it is confident it can keep serving customers — but it did not directly address whether construction of the Taoyuan plant would resume or give a new timeline. Taoyuan City Government said it has not yet received notice from Micron of a construction suspension, and said it hopes the company and its employees can reach a consensus.

Source: Micron statement via BigGo Finance and CNA, Nov 5; Taoyuan City Government via BigGo, Nov 5

Fab 11E was scheduled to begin production in 2028, using advanced ASML equipment to manufacture high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and DRAM — the memory chips at the heart of the AI boom. Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan, roughly 3,000 of them in Taoyuan and about 12,300 in Taichung, and Taiwan is one of its key global production bases. Because the fab is not yet producing anything, current chip output is not affected by the reported pause.

Source: BigGo Finance, Nov 5; TradingKey, Nov 5; Voltgrid, Nov 5

What the workers are demanding

The dispute was triggered by employees demanding a share of the record profits generated by Micron's AI business. The Taoyuan union wants a permanent system that distributes 15 percent of operating profit to employees, paid entirely in cash rather than partly in stock; about 70 percent of its members rejected Micron's profit-sharing proposal on October 23, a day after a 24-hour warning strike — the first strike in Taiwan's semiconductor sector. Micron reached an agreement with its larger Taichung union in October covering quarterly profit-sharing, pay and pension terms, but Bloomberg's sources say executives are concerned that agreement could be overturned, and some Taichung employees are also challenging its terms.

Source: BigGo Finance, Nov 5; Voltgrid, Nov 5; Bloomberg via Mezha, Nov 5

Taiwan's Ministry of Labor said the Taoyuan City Government's Department of Labor had already assisted both sides through two rounds of negotiations, with ministry personnel participating, and that a third round is scheduled for Friday, November 6, which the ministry will again attend to help build consensus. The labour bureau's earlier talks, on October 21 and 27, covered the bonus calculation basis, information transparency and the union's demands, and differences remain, the city said.

Source: Taiwan Ministry of Labor via BigGo Finance, Nov 5; Taoyuan labour bureau via Voltgrid, Nov 5

The reported pause landed in the markets as well: Micron's shares fell nearly 5 percent in pre-market trading after the Bloomberg report, TradingKey reported — a sign of how sensitive investors are to any delay in new memory capacity while AI demand keeps HBM supply tight. Analysts note the suspension, if it holds, clouds the 2028 start date rather than today's supply, because Fab 11E was still under construction.

Source: TradingKey, Nov 5

What happens next

Friday's third round of talks is the immediate test: a consensus there would let Micron restart work with its 2028 timeline bruised but alive, while another failure would harden a pause that Bloomberg's sources say may extend to a review of Micron's Taiwan manufacturing footprint. No restart timetable has been published, and Micron has not said whether the pause is temporary or permanent.