Yeah, I tried that, there's a small amount of wiggle room but not much, because they said "it wouldn't be fair to our current workers in that classification that aren't making as much". A poor answer. Ignores market conditions and says they know they're underpaying other people too, many of whom are probably looking for a new job as a result. I'm embedded in an operational division, but we've lost a very significant % of our core IT folks as well.