Couldn’t you, as a strategy, just dress real nice once every six months and then every twelve or so, you just go to your boss and say you received an offer at 10% increased salary or something? They “match” that and you both feel like you made a good deal.

Well if those were the only days that that person dressed nicely, surely the boss would notice :) I jest though, your point got a chuckle out of me!

I think the dressing nicely implies that they’ve had a job interview somewhere else.

I usually only dress formally when I’m presenting outside of my company and people usually joke about my having interviewed somewhere else that day.

Maybe your boss says, ok take it then. It is a risky strategy.

Seems pretty easy to back out. Though absolutely a boy-who-cried-wolf type situation.

That's fraud and illegal, though. Surely.

It is not fraud, it is just lying. Lying is not illegal.

Withholding the truth is also lying, by omission. In that sense, your employer is already lying to you by not compensating you according to your actual value. I realize it’s a bit of a stretch but there’s something there.

>It is not fraud, it is just lying. Lying is not illegal.

Lying to get a financial gain is the definition of fraud.

That said, it's one of those technically illegal things that no one in a million years is going to get charged for.

You’re right, and I didn’t know that. Fascinating law. I blame being ESL.

However, I wonder if it actually is fraud. Intent matters. The intention isn’t to defraud the employer, but rather to short-circuit the whole process of job skipping for a correct wage. So it’s actually not an unfair gain, and that is precisely why I think it’s not even immoral in this case.

I don’t think it’s either of those. Unethical and immoral are better terms to describe lying for personal gain.

Is it more immoral than withholding fair wages because your employees are unwilling to change jobs? It is fighting fire with fire to be sure, but it somehow seems justified in this context.

A person in my life changed jobs to a worse location and then changed back. Pay rise of like 20% and a better position (senior doctor). That is just not justifiable. Same employer, same hospital, same ward.

I would argue that yes, it is more immoral. The employee that you are paying is being paid under a willing buyer/willing seller standard.

It's fair to argue whether it is moral to pay people less than what you think they are worth to you. That is questioning the morality of capitalism.

In contrast, "fighting fire with fire" is justifying lying. Maybe the ends justify the means in specific cases, but I believe that generally people and particularly ethicists agree that lying for personal gain is generally considered immoral/unethical. Of course, there are cases where lying is considered justified and the moral thing to do e.g. saying no if a Nazi asks you if you're hiding Jews in your attic. But in that case, you're lying not so much for personal gain but to help others.

While from a purely theoretical point of view your perspective is admirable, once you enter the real world you realize that they, we, all want to sometimes hear certain words to justify certain actions, either in their own eyes or those of the company they work for.

For example, your manager would like to give you a raise, but company policy or unwritten "this is how it works" rules say that a raise of more than 15% can only be given when the employee has received an offer from another company. But they don't actually want to see the offer, they just want you to say it, just as your partner wants you to say "I love you" to him or her from time to time to continue receiving the benefits you have been looking forward to maintaining or increasing.

Behavioural economics is a bitch.

“Neoclassical” economists might say you made an irrational choice.

Human beings know that how you feel is as important as how much you’re getting.

this is well understood from an traditional economics perspective. accepting salary matches is a strategy that rewards employers who underpay you. not accepting matches punishes employers who underpay you. If you want to have your employer have the right incentives, you should not reward them for underpaying you