TSMC fait du bruit pour la création d’un syndicat ! 65 000 employés peuvent-ils apprendre à faire grève comme Samsung « pour obtenir une prime » ?

TSMC employees on the Facebook group "TSMC Big and Small Matters" leaked that their bonuses were cut by 15%, with grassroots employees threatening to "follow Samsung's general strike."
Three days later, Chairman Wei Zhejia personally held a briefing session, announcing that this year's bonus would increase by over 30%, and the incident was resolved.
But the world's most profitable semiconductor company, with over 60,000 employees in Taiwan, has no union.
(Background summary: TSMC confirms the bonus cut to 10% to buy green energy, employees angry: why should corporate social responsibility be deducted from my pocket? Calls for union formation rise)
(Additional background: I have the "TSMC the better the mood, the worse I feel" disease: the psychological torment of engineers before resignation)

Table of Contents

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• "Good companies don't need unions"
• Samsung has demonstrated it
• Taiwanese law says it's allowed, but in reality it probably isn't
• What about next time

Key Summary

• TSMC's Q1 profit increased by 58% year-on-year to a record high, yet rumors of a 15% bonus cut spread, employees threaten to strike like Samsung, and three days later Wei Zhejia announced a 30% bonus increase at a briefing
• Samsung's union went from its first strike in 2024 to over 90,000 members by 2026 (covering 70% of Korean workers), planning an 18-day general strike, with a single-day strike reducing fab output by 18%
• Taiwan's union law protects the right to form unions, but TSMC has no corporate union to date; scholars suggest adopting a cross-company "semiconductor engineer trade union" route

On the evening of May 24, the "TSMC Big and Small Matters" Facebook group exploded.

Someone posted a screenshot claiming TSMC was going to cut bonuses by 15%. Among hundreds of comments, most were angry, a few sarcastic, but one comment was particularly striking.

"Samsung can strike now."

Three days later, Chairman Wei Zhejia canceled his business trip and held a face-to-face communication briefing at the Hsinchu headquarters at 10 a.m. on May 27. He said this year's bonus increase would exceed 30%, promising overall employee compensation would be higher than last year, and opened a query system for everyone to check the figures themselves. On the same afternoon, the query system went live; employees finished viewing the amounts, closed their computers, and continued working overtime.

The bonus dissatisfaction incident was over.

But the problem was not finished. TSMC's profit in the first quarter of 2026 surged by 58% compared to the same period last year, setting a new record, and its global market value ranks among the top.
Over 60,000 Taiwanese employees' "protest weapon" in this storm was a comment in an anonymous Facebook group. Not union negotiations, not collective bargaining, not strike votes.

"Good companies don't need unions"

In 2016, Morris Chang said in an interview with Global Views Monthly, a phrase that was later repeatedly quoted: "Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, Texas Instruments have no unions. I believe this is a key reason for their success."
He believed that labor-management conflict was bad for companies; good companies take good care of employees, and employees and companies are united, so unions are naturally unnecessary.

This is not empty talk. In the 1970s, Morris Chang, then overseeing global semiconductor business at Texas Instruments, attempted to initiate union voting at the Houston plant.
The result was "very few workers supported, far below half."
He never encountered successful union actions in his lifetime; this experience became the foundation of his belief.

In December 2022, during the TSMC Arizona plant relocation ceremony, Biden said on stage, "Unions are back."
Morris Chang later said he found that statement "a bit offensive."

Four years later, Google has unions (Alphabet Workers Union, established in 2021), Apple retail stores have unions (the first in Maryland in 2022), and even Amazon warehouses have unions (JFK8 warehouse voting).

Morris Chang's 2016 list of "successful companies without unions" is disappearing one by one.

But TSMC is still on the list.

Samsung has demonstrated it

In Seoul, a completely different story is unfolding.

On June 7, 2024, Samsung Electronics employees launched their first strike since the company's founding, lasting only one day, as a tentative test.
On July 8 of the same year, they struck again, this time continuing until August 1.

By May 2026, the Samsung Semiconductor National Union (NSEU) had grown to over 90,000 members, covering more than 70% of Korean workers.
Two years earlier, there were only 32,000.
Almost tripled.

This union's demands are specific: remove the bonus cap (currently capped at 50% of base salary), and distribute 15% of annual operating profit to employees.

Samsung accounts for about one-third of the world's DRAM, and together with SK Hynix controls two-thirds of the global market, plus indispensable high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in the AI era.
In other words, these workers hold not just bargaining chips but a critical vulnerability in the global AI supply chain.

Taiwanese law says it's allowed, but in reality it probably isn't

Can TSMC employees form a union? Legally, yes.

Taiwan's Union Law Article 35 explicitly guarantees workers' right to organize unions, and no employer shall discriminate against employees participating in union activities.
TSMC is not subject to the defense industry exemption in Article 4.

A lawyer on Dcard analyzed clearly: "Writing in employment contracts that employees cannot form unions is itself illegal."

Law is one thing; reality is another.

On PTT Tech_Job, discussions about "Can tech companies establish unions?" appear every few months.
The consensus in these posts is almost identical: the initiator is the first to be targeted by management.

In a performance system that determines bonus amounts, the causal link between "leading union formation" and "performance evaluation being lowered" is obvious; everyone understands.

Someone on Threads wrote a post that triggered many shares: "Suddenly realizing, TSMC, which so many employees complain about, has no union! This is truly terrifying upon reflection."

Professor Cheng Zhi-Yue of NCCU's Labor Department proposed an alternative: don't form a corporate union (the leader is too easily targeted), but instead form a cross-company "semiconductor engineer trade union," similar to pilot or flight attendant unions in the airline industry.

Next time?

But after this suggestion was reported by the media, no one has pushed it forward to date.

Ironically, TSMC in Taiwan doesn't face unions, but in the U.S., it is immediately taught how to behave by unions.

In 2023, TSMC's Arizona Fab 21 project lagged behind schedule; company executives publicly said the reason was "insufficient skills of American workers," and they needed to send personnel from Taiwan to support.
The local union in Arizona immediately counterattacked, calling this statement "offensive and incorrect."

The conflict was not only technical. Multiple reports pointed out that Taiwanese managers are accustomed to loudly berating workers in public, and after complaints from American employees, TSMC had to arrange "training to avoid shouting in public."
Some American engineers expected to be assigned to clean construction workers' trash and left during training.

Eventually, TSMC reached an agreement with the local union: only dispatch foreign workers with "professional experience" when necessary, relying on local labor otherwise.
Fab 21 now has over 3,000 employees, starting mass production at the end of 2024.

In Taiwan, TSMC's culture is just that—culture.
In the U.S., when culture meets system, concessions are necessary.
The difference is whether there is a union.

After the briefing on May 27, TSMC's stock price was unaffected.
Wei Zhejia admitted that this year, the profit distribution mechanism was indeed adjusted, with some emphasis shifted toward shareholder returns, social investment, ESG, etc., but emphasized that "overall employee compensation will still be higher than last year."

The crisis was resolved, and this time, it was lifted.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can TSMC employees legally form a union?

Yes. Taiwan's Union Law Article 35 guarantees workers' right to organize unions; TSMC is not subject to the defense industry exemption in Article 4.
But in practice, those leading union efforts are easily targeted in performance evaluations; scholars suggest adopting a cross-company "semiconductor engineer trade union" route.

How significant is Samsung's union strike impact on the semiconductor industry?

Samsung's single-day strike in May 2026 caused memory fab output to drop by 18% per shift and foundry line output by 58%.
Samsung accounts for about one-third of global DRAM; a full 18-day strike could potentially cause losses estimated between 30 trillion and 100 trillion Korean won.