It's a real morale breaker to be told that your labor is worth less because of where you live when everyone is remote anyways.
People have worked remote before covid, without any salary adjustments.
HR has to set up these policies in place to make sure their salaries line up with local averages. However, it's up to the management to decide who will fill the positions and at what salary. They will make adjustments to make sure their top performers are compensated properly.
Worst case scenario, move to another company.
Well don't feel bad because that's not how it is. It's not about what your labor is worth. It's about supply+demand.
It sucks but at least we have high relative salaries.
That being said, there is a substantive difference between being hired at a salary and suddenly having your salary cut. The former is why companies try to hide what everyone is paid; to avoid the lower paid workers from feeling screwed and advocating for more money. But having corporate come in and say “your labor is now worth 70% what it was before” creates unavoidable feelings of being valued less by the company, because that’s exactly what’s happening.