How do you define "the value they provide the company"?
It appears the people working at this company company are providing enough value for the company to be able to pay them this amount. If it can sustain revenues, who's to say it has to return its profit to the shareholders rather than to its employees.
That raises an interesting question. Assuming the profit levels haven't suddenly risen, if the workers are now producing enough value for the company to be able to pay them this amount now, they presumably already were producing that value.
Isn't this an implicit admission that the company was underpaying them before?
Sure, but if the raises are portrayed as a question of fairness (rather than simply as a business tool to retain and attract better employees), then implicitly they're saying that the salaries weren't fair before, no?
It appears the people working at this company company are providing enough value for the company to be able to pay them this amount. If it can sustain revenues, who's to say it has to return its profit to the shareholders rather than to its employees.
[edit] removed duplicate word